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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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http://www.archive.org/details/seersofagesembraOOpeeb 



SEERS OF THE AGES: 



EMBRACING 



SPIEITUALJSM, 



PAST AND PRESENT. 



DOCTRINES STATED AND MORAL TENDENCIES DEFINED. ' 



By J. M. PEEBLES. 



I have stolen the golden keys of the Egyptians ; I will indulge my sacred 
fury. — Kepler. 

Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. The highest state- 
ment of new philosophy complacently caps itself with some prophetic maxim 
from the oldest learning. There is something mortifying in this perpetual 
circle — Emerson. 

Master mind and you master the universe. — Perasee Lendanta. 

It doth not yet appear what we shall be. — Apostle John. 



SECOND EDITION. 



BOSTON: 

WILLIAM WHITE AND COMPANY, 

BANNER OF LIGHT OFFICE, 

158 Washington Street. 

NEW-YORK AGENTS — THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, 

119 Nassau Street. 

. 1869. 










Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 

JAMES M. PEEBLES, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



REETING 



Pure Spirit of Aaron Nite 



Love is immortal. Golden is the chain that unites the past with 
the present. More beautiful is the spirit-blossom for the sweet love- 
budding of earth. Precious in spirit-history is Yorkshire, England — 
not so much for thy noble descent and clerical culture, as for thy 
happy home there, whose first memories of incarnate life, maternally 
pure, cling to thy soul as lingering melodies from inspired minstrels. 
Passing early through the pale-curtained doorway of death, to thy 
" Pear Grove Cottage," in the upper kingdoms of immortality, rapid 
and rythmic has been thy march of progress. 

Though gathering pearls of knowledge from the risen seers of India, 
Syria and Greece, storing thy receptive nature with those heavenly 
truths and divine experiences that abound so full and free for all in the 
ever-green gardens of the Infinite — thou hast not forgotten thy mortal 
brothers and sisters, who feel their way in comparative darkness, and, 
like children, continually cry for light and wise spirit guidance. 

Oft as hearts have ached, tears fallen, or martyred feet, on missions 
of mercy, have crimsoned the soil, thou hast turned thy calm presence 
earthward, laden with balms, baptisms and benedictions. 

To me hast thou come in lone evening hours, bringing the dewy 
freshness of a foreshadowed morning, pearling the veiled moments of 



IV GREETING. 

despair, diffusing inner sunshine and gladness ; in wintry seasons of 
discontent, scattering delicious blooms, laden with love's incense, and 
speaking words of tenderness starry with promise — words so aglow 
with heavenly instruction as to make music in the blissful homes of 
the glorified. How oft hast thou come with " Celestia," " Morning 
Star" and " Queen of Morn" — Sisters of Purity — who prelude thy 
philosophy with the harmonizing melodies of the harp, the lute and 
the lyre ! How indebted am I to thee for thy symbolic illustrations, 
logical acumen, originality of thought, and messages warm with 
sympathy from an overflowing heart ! 

Spirit Brother ! as a feeble token of appreciation and soul-felt 
gratitude, for thy watch-care and many favors, permit me to dedicate 
this volume to thee, as one of my immortal Teachers. 

J. M. PEEBLES. 



The Horoscope. 



soul, hungering, thirsting soul ! for thee the fountains of the 
great deep are breaking up, and sweet life-waves, long obscured in the 
debris of ages, are flowing love at thy feet, " Whosoever will, let him 
take of the waters of life freely." 

Truth is immortal, and long after the lips that spoke it have mingled 
their dust with the Lethean stream, traceable afterwards by the freed 
spirit, it echoes through the arches of heaven, the choral base of angel 
song that celebrates the eras of progress. What, then, cares "Brother 
James," for praise or blame, approbation or censure? "I testify of 
myself ! " is the language that speaks from his heart, beating along the 
sun-mantled shores of time " to seek and to save that which was lost." 

This brother has subpoenaed me, under solemn oath, to write this 
preface — actually ordered it as a " Thus saith Perasee Lendanta ! " 
" Well," I said, " tell Perasee, the Italian prince of gods, so majesti- 
cally calm and commanding, that neither he nor you shall change " one 
jot or tittle" of my testimony; nor shall either of you know what is 
written about you and your work, until the same is stereotyped. This 
proviso being very meekly accepted, I would like your eyes, dear 
reader, for a deep insight into the ocean mind of " St. James." 
Earnest, determined, full of innocent sarcasm which no man can tame; 
toned to sympathy, sparkling with wit and lofty thought; beloved 
throughout America ; himself impressed upon the present age ; a con- 
fiding companion of his loving brother, John, the disciple of Jesus, it 



VI THE HOROSCOPE. 

is not too much to prophesy, that his book, here offered the world, will 
be as a sun in myriad homes on the Western and Eastern continents. 
Let me snatch from oblivion one of his manuscripts, indexing the 
man himself, bringing us nearer his soul, so buoyant and free, so 
childlike and parental : 

" Pythagoras lives in sacred memory, as well as in Jamblichus' classic 
prose. Jesus lives, though the mould is deep over the gardens and 
olive groves that once felt the pressure of his bleeding feet. Demos- 
thenes lives in that oration upon the crown. Mozart lives in those 
undying melodies that inspired with diviner ideals the courtly and the 
sceptered of Europe. The dewdrop writes its history on the plant ; 
the stream its on the mountain side ; the fossil its in the rock ; 
the flower its on the passing breeze; you, yours, dear reader, on 
the sensorial faculties and future organisms of a world-wide 
brotherhood, and you will live, too, on earth forever in the 
forces you put in motion, the work you accomplish, the good you do. 
I shall live when this parchment will have been smothered under the 
rubbish of such viewless waste-winds as swept over those fearful 
midnights that gloomed in darkness the mediaeval ages. Inspiration 
over-swept and over-arched all the past generations. There were 
paradises lost and gained, scores of centuries since ; and, during their 
growth, or decline, Spiritualism, in some form, was a star of promise in 
their midst. It is to-day a light, a voice, a power from heaven — a 
divine power acknowledged by millions, rolling the "stone" of doubt 
away from the door of a long entombed humanity. It is not only 
the " second coming," but virtually a continuous coming in the clouds 
of heaven with attending angels, the hope and the pledge of universal 
redemption." 

The Pastophora is the production of years of close and severe 
searching, amid other pressing claims upon his attention. With 
indefatigable labor, James has gathered rich lore where others saw only 
alloy. A band of spirits, some of them very ancient, and all lovers of 
antiquity, desirous of blossoming into life " things new and old," has 
directed his mind and his steps adown the sombre walks of the past, 



THE HOROSCOPE. VU 

amid the brooding silence of buried civilizations. The pyramids had 
voices for him ; the obelisks glared forth a hidden mystery in their 
inscriptions ; rocks and tombs, scepters and swords, dust and 
ashes, all bore traces of oracles that once built kingdoms and 
empires, all were prints of events readable under the spirit- 
vision of his guides, aflash with the truth that ministering angels 
have ever been the arbiters of human destinies. The Pasto- 
phora is the faithful record of this pilgrimage of study offered 
now to the world as a beautiful repository of " Ancient and 
Modern Spiritualism." It is doubtless the first and only work ever 
published that has placed the past wave-eras, with their representative 
spiritual chieftains, in chronological and systematic order. As such, in 
construction at least, it is " something new under the sun." A book 
of biographical and spiritual reference, it is of inestimable value. 
Its literary and philosophical qualities are obviously of a high tone, 
both in style and sentiment, all throbbing through with a pure love of 
truth, and a deep reverence for whatever ennobles humanity and lifts 
it up to divine life. 

The greatest difficulty he has had to encounter, amid such a 
profusion of spiritual evidences, was to do justice to the great multitude 
of witnesses rising on every side, demanding a hearing. In his descent 
into the ocean of the past, he found so vast a plain of precious pearls, 
there is not room to enshrine them all in this beautiful cabinet; but 
enough are gleaned to show that our heavenly philosophy, like silver 
veins, branches in all possible directions — a vast and inexhaustible mine 
of immortal wealth, exhuming for incorporation into the spiritual 
temple we build. A complete analysis of the spiritual phenomena, 
variegated with eclectic beauties, sweet with the love of truth, it may 
be properly styled — " Paradise Regained." 

Another attractive feature is its spiritual symbolism — which is the 
language exalted angels use — conveying to the senses, as well as 
understanding, truth set as diamonds in gold — a speculum of the 
spiritual philosophy reflecting the " soul of things." Even the title 
of the book is peculiarly significant. 



VH1 THE HOROSCOPE. 

Pastopiiora is lexicographically related with pastor — shepherd — 
indicative of ministerial office for the protection of the religious flock. 
It is originally rooted in the Sanscrit — the oldest language in the 
world; and, used in the plural, Pastophorae, literally means dwellers 
in the temples. It is, therefore, a most beautiful title, euphonious in 
pronunciation, symbolizing the inner life, burning as a Shekinah 
watch-light to the worshiping soul in its own " holy of holies. ' 

The interested reader will also inquire into the meaning of the 
syTnbols on the back of the book — the cross, triangle, and circle. As 
he carefully peruses these pages, he will discover that the data of the 
world's progress in civilizations center in India, whose religious symbol, 
providential as it seems, is the circle, representing God, the Universal 
Soul. 

All things are trinal — body, soul and spirit; man is this perfect 
trinity — the cross, the triangle, the circle. Geologically our world 
started from the circle. It extended then to the broadness of its 
orbit in a gaseous condition incipient to crystalization. Contracting, 
the elements were angularized — divided, sharp-pointed, battling, vol- 
canic, developing latent force, crystalizing into extreme individuality — 
the cross of crucifixion — when the law of reaction obtained, tending to 
centrality again — the leveling down of mountains — the leveling up of 
valleys, encircling all in harmony. 

Religion is but the laws of nature spiritualized — love married to sci- 
ence — the angel of heaven acting in practical life. Religion dates in 
the golden circle — in the tropics — the India of love. Have you noticed 
that civilization began there, and veered northward to be crystalized 
into sparkling intellectuality by a colder climate ; spreading itself over 
Europe, thence westward in parallels to America, across the Pacific to 
Asia, and gradually settling back, laden with mental riches, to the 
tropics again ? All things move in circles. India is the birth-place 
of religion — the Eden — the conjugal circle of soul. How appropriate, 
then, is the circle to represent her parental relations with all races, 
governments, and improvements I The embryonic religion of mankind, 



THE HOROSCOPE. IX 

India is seen in the spirit world by the sign of the circle — full-orbed 
and golden. 

Egypt is the child of India, less affectional in faith, but more astro- 
nomical, philosophical, and practical — the daughter, whose name is 
Science. The Granges and the Himalayas are so vast, clouded, mystic, 
they inspire awe, and, in so sunny a clime, unfold an exuberant con- 
templation of soul — a poetic religious idealism that enchants every 
sense and imparadises every thought. Egypt is tamer, not so melan- 
choly, not so vast'and spiring, not so cloudy and luxurious, not so mel- 
low and musical. The Nile, mysterious as the Granges, alluvial and 
inundating, is not so sweetly imbosomed in the shadows of great 
mountains and protective banyan forests. Egypt has more burning 
sands, more raging sea from the north vexed with storms, more poison 
in her desert winds. Hence, her inhabitants have more angularity of 
character. She is spiritually tropical ; but nature's battles make her 
contentious, intellectual, fiercely just, the manufacturer of an implaca- 
ble hell, and of a delightful Elysium across the stormy lake of death. 
She is, therefore, the circle geometrically changed into a right-angle- 
triangle. She is three-sided, pyramidal, with stars for heart-beats- 
Egypt courting science from very love, her horoscopic sign in the spirit 
world is the right-angle-triangle. 

But there must be body to this trinity ; the perfect individuality of 
principle. Palestine, whose people were born and disciplined in the 
slaveries of Egypt, is a little colder, variegated, and on a smaller scale. 
The Mediterranean, dashing with awful roar against her shores, is the 
warning voice of the great Jehovah, angry at the sins of his chosen 
children. The Jordan is swift and acrid. The valleys and brooks are 
contracted. Horeb and Sinai and Lebanon are wrapt in jealous soli- 
tudes. The Egyptio-codes of Moses, intensified to rigorous penalty, 
enforce order and racial nationality. What, then, is the Jewish char- 
acter ? Selfish, arrogant, narrow, jealous, and arbitrary. Judaism, spir- 
itualized, is Pauline Christianity — -the aggressive sword — the Protestant- 
ism of India — the body in the triune development — the religious body 
for the soul of Egypt and the spirit of India. What, then, is the sign 



X THE HOROSCOPE. 

of Christianity in the immortal horoscope ? The cross, indicative of 
doctrine, of individuality, of progress towards the circle of the 
Harmonial Philosophy. 

So religion, like every other law of life, repeats itself; moves ip cir- 
cles ; inversely from circles in incarnations to angles and crosses, and 
from these back to the circle, spirally climbing round and round in 
iufinite progression. Nothing, then, is lost. All that India gives, or 
Egypt, or Judea, or America, are translated into newness of life, as the 
inheritance of the ages to come. 

The PASTOPHORA,thus set in prism, is this beautiful trinity expressed 
— all religions essentially comprised in its circle of philosophy, dividing 
and sparkling with angular points of electric thought, and blending 
again in rainbowed drops for oceanic love. 

Read then, world searching for light, carefully read these breathing 
pages, redolent with words that burn ; and then rank the book where 
it belongs, -with the standards of Spiritualism, and, with gratitude, 
thank Grod and take courage under the glory that flashes from all 
inspired pens, and throbs in all honest bosoms, bared so freely to the 
arrows of persecution as a bulwark of defence to more spiritual and 
angelic generations coming. 

If this volume severs a mental chain, frees a creed-crushed soul, plucks 
a thorn from a human pathway, planting a rose there, sheds a kindling 
ray of light upon a pilgrim's path, or causes even a tremulous smile to 
brighten the brow of sorrow and suffering, then is the author satisfied — 
aye, richly blessed, for he finds his highest happiness and sweetest 
blessing in blessing others. 

J. 0. BARRETT. 

New Year's Day, 1869. 



y 



ECTURE I 



Spirit of the Present Age, 



Chapter i. 



SPIRIT OP THE AGE 



** All grim and soiled, and brown with tan, 
I saw a Strong One, in his wrath, 
Smiting the godless shrines of man 
Along his path." 

*« My soul is not a palace of the past, 
Where priest-worn creeds, like Rome's gray Senate, quake, 
Hearing afar the vandal's trumpet hoarse. 
The time is ripe and rotten ripe for change; 
Then let it come 1" 

Progress is God's right hand angel ! It is the Christ in 
our midst, working by methods mystic as the pictured sym- 
bols in the Patmos Visions. Its laws diverse, inverse, and 
often unfathomable, ever act to the same divine purpose of 
physical refinement and spiritual unfoldment. 

Causation is infinite. Change is a necessity of nature. 
Essential Spirit — that all-interfusing force-presence, filling 
immensity, and being causative, does and eternally will act 
upon matter. 

Something from nothing, a self-evident absurdity, there are 
no absolute creations in the universe, only new and higher 
formations. Spirit and matter both eternal ; spiritual sub- 
stance in connection with physical substance in its various 
gradations, constitute one co-eternal duality. 

Spirit is independent of matter relative to mere existence ; 
yet dependent upon it for its manifestations. 

13 



14 DOCTRINES OP SPIRITUALISTS. 

The God-principle or Divine Energy immanentin, and < 3n- 
nected with, the dual forms of matter and spirit, must ever 
produce motion, disintegration, evolution and pulsations 
towards perfection. The old dies that the new may sing of 
birth, maturity, victory. 

The past with its lengthened shadows and suns, its defeats 
and triumphs, was well; so were frightful explosions, during 
the old Plutonian period. Fossils in silurian rocks were 
deeply significant as treasured histories of primeval life, 
bespeaking higher organized existence; and so even the 
possible of man, as prince of immortal nature, during com- 
ing geologic epochs. 

" All bloom is fruit of death ; 
Creation's soul thrives irom decay, 
And nature feeds on ruin ; the big earth 
Summers in rot; and harvests through the frost, 
To fructify the world ; the mortal now 
Is pregnant with spring-flowers to come ; 
And death is seed-time of eternity ! " 

It is folly, maddened by bigotry, to ask the thinkers of the 
nineteeth century to hold the fiag-staffs of the ancients. 
Parchments are fixtures. "While neither constitutions nor 
creeds grow, souls do. As well strive to fill our arteries with 
the crimson blood that coursed the veins of Jewish patriarchs 
and priests, as to appropriate their thoughts, commandments, 
or religious experiences, forgetful of the living present, 
hoping thereby to have our spiritual life vitalized. Shall we 

" Load our young thought with the iron shirt, 
By bigots raked from some Judean grave-yard's dirt ? " 

The yesterdays are gone ; let them go ! The good of the 
past preserved and reconstructed, Americans have to do with 
the to-days, and a brightening future stretching in mellowed 
radiance, deepening in significance, gorgeous with hope, and 
prophetic of a coming Eden, whose crowning glories shall 
be harmonial men and women, being laws unto themselves. 
True, the present strikes its roots back into the past. It is 



SPIRIT OP THE AGE. 15 

our legacy ; and, so far as it speaks truth to the soul, let us do 
homage at its shrine. 

All those brave soulsj Pythagoras, Plato, Anaxagoras, 
Confucius, Jesus, John, and others,, martyred for principle, 
greatly advantaged and beautifully enriched the succeeding 
ages by wise utterances that have streamed in golden splen- 
dors down to the present. They were helps, having helped 
humanity; and yet, they are not our masters — not infallible 
guides. Wisdom did not die with them, and therefore they 
must not talk to us authoritatively. 

Each should be his own authority.. God speaks to us just 
as frequently and fatherly as he did to Jewish seers. Seeing 
in every valley a Jordan, in every sectarian church a "dead 
sea," in every aspirational heart an altar of worship, in every 
woodland eminence a mount of ascension, and in every 
child an embryo angel, what special need of Hebrew bounty, 
styled "Revelation? " 

Those must indeed be "babes and sucklings," who will 
persist in partaking of manna — the history of bread nearly 
two thousand years booked — and dried fruit generally, when 
spiritual vineyards are clustering with grapes, and orchards 
are bending under a ripened luxuriance, and inspirations, like 
benedictions, are coming each day from heavenly realms. 

It is difficult to Jerusalemize Anglo Saxons. If the soul- 
lamp would burn brightly, illumining the living now, it must 
be lit from such inspirational fire-fountains as the wants of 
this age have kindled. Robes may have been well for Aaron,. 
fox-chasing for Sampson, grazing for Nebuchadnazzar, tent- 
making for Paul, locusts for the Judean Baptists, and manna 
for Israelitish wanderers ; but " give us this day our daily 
bread ;'■' that is, daily truths and principles, all alive with love 
from the many-mansioned homes of the angels. The waster 
should be the builder; and the hand that carries the " torch 
for the burning," should also carry the hammer for building 
better. Sectarian churches, doubtless, are partial necessities, 
and for the time being, well; as were baptismal waters for 
John's disciples ; but give us the baptism of the Holy Spirit ; 



16 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

or the descending divine afflatus from celestial hosts, submerg- 
ing and suffusing our natures in a measureless ocean of purity 
and wisdom. 

The revengeful, repenting, personal God of Judaism satis- 
fied the demands of the Hebrews. They could grasp no 
higher conception of the infinite incarnate life-principle of 
the universe. It still satisfies millions of conscientious 
churchmen, with more zeal than knowledge, who strive to 
fill themselves upon the mouldy crumbs that fall from the 
oily lips of ordained Rip Van Winkles, who " say " theii 
prayers instead of doing them, and "profess" instead of 
possess the divine principles of the absolute religion. 

What pining ! what leanness and lankness even in liberal 
churches ! what moanings from, the pulpits over " bleeding 
Zion ! " what quiet slumberings in the pews ! what efforts to 
make special engagements with God during winter-seasons 
for "revivals ! " Oh what a thin, dry, fleshless, marvelously 
lifeless, soulless " Skeleton," is Orthodoxy ! Numbers bitterly 
feel it to be thus, yet cling from fear, or motives of policy, 
to its bleached bones and encrusted symbols. Others, good 
at heart, yet timid, fearing the loss of position, continue to 
preserve their ecclesiastical connections, faithfully hugging 
their theologically "dead mother's breast! " 

The wisdom of importing all our religion from Asia-Minor 
is more than questionable, since God is as present with us as 
with the Asiatics, inspiration being a universal in-breathing 
from the Infinite. 

"He sends his teachers unto every age, 
To every clime, and every race of men." 

The remembrance of corn that yellowed in Kedron's 
valleys, the milk and honey that flowed in the lands of 
Canaat, and the figs and pomgranates that reddened around 
Olive's mountain, gladdening the disciples of the Nazarene, 
can not satisfy spiritual hunger; nor can the Jewish crude 
notions of retrogressive demons and sacrifices offered a per- 
sonal, local, jealous God, satisfy the growing desires of our 



SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 17 

inmost nature. Church doctrines are but husks to spiritual 
consciousness. John Wesley, in an inspired moment, said : 
" I am sick of opinions ; give us good works and the faith 
of practical benevolence." Scaffoldings are necessary only 
during the processes of building; and chaff, after the ripening 
of the grain, is but sport for the winds ! Why, old theology 
appears about as pitiable as would the ancient Hebrew 
method of treading out corn beneath the hoofs of lazy oxen, 
to a spirited western farmer in charge of a modern threshing 
machine. 

When human bodies die, sectarists have good sense enough 
to bury them from sight; but when their creeds perish, 
becoming as offal to investigators, they strive to embalm 
and preserve them beneath gothic piles and costly cathe- 
drals, to the merriment of metaphysicians and the almost 
infinite sorrow of angels. As well strive to bind the waters 
of the ocean with a rope of sand, or hush the winds fresh 
from ^Eolus hand, as to bid the currents of free thought 
cease circulating among inquiring masses that dare to assert 
their independence. Popes and priests have measurably 
been shorn of their power. Century-mossed systems have 
lost their vitalizing force, and creedal ceremonies have become 
dull and irksome. 

The great throbbing heart of humanity calls for living 
inspirations, and greater, grander truths fresh from the 
Father and the angels that do the divine will. Emerson, in 
an address to the Senior Theological class at Cambridge, 
said : 

" It is my duty to say to you, that 'the need was never greater of a 
new revelation than now. From the views I have already expressed, 
you will infer the sad conviction which I have, I believe with numbers, 
of the universal decay and now almost death of faith in society. The 
Soul is not preached. The Church seems to totter to its fall — almost 
all life is" extinct. I think no man can go with his thoughts about him 
into one of our churches, without feeling, that what hold the public 
worship once had on man — is gone, or going. It has lost its grasp on 
the aiFections of the good, and the fears of the bad. The prayers and 
even the dogmas of our church are wholly isolated from anything now 
extant in the life and business of the people." 
2 



18 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

A perfectly vigorous and original life, founded upon the 
science of the soul, is what seems fit and admirably adapted 
to the genius of this country, now freed from the blight of 
oppressive institutions ; and this life-status is to be supreme, 
sure as physical landscapes are reflected in individual char- 
acter, as climate affects religion. 

"Light! more light!" relative to immortality, the soul's 
capacities and to the glories of an infinite future, is the 
demand of our growing humanity. In answer thereto the 
church offers us " faith " and clerical leading strings, sanc- 
tified by custom, telling us to be good, submissive, quiet 
"babes in Christ; " and then, just over Jordan, we shall find 
the jasper city paved with gold, and musical with saints 
serenading "the Holy One of Israel!" But this faith 
imparts no free, spontaneous energy. It soon degenerates 
into a languishing formality, a dry cant, a narrowing non- 
descript, an inexpressible churchianic hybrid between life 
and death, as " revival " confessions demonstrate. Faith is 
elemental in the human mind, but this ecclesiastic faith r devoid 
of reason, and "without works," is dead! The eccentric 
Carlyle says, that, "just in the ratio that knowledge increases, 
faith diminishes ; consequently, those that know the most 
always believe the least." 

The age demands, not aping shadows, gloved gentry, nor 
cowled clergymen fashioned to order in "Theological Semi- 
naries," bewailing the sins of Greeks and Jews, and aiming 
arrows of rebuke at the poor Hittites and Moabites — not 
sluggish conservatives infected with stagnant, deathly torpor, 
staying on earth as do oysters in their bed, praying for the 
Millennium, because they then hope to " sit " — sit under 
'• ambrosial" vines — fearing to brush down cobwebs in their 
temples lest the roof fall in, and piously opposing the " new 
moon," out of a profound respect for the old, forgetting the 
Carlylean maxim, that the " old skin never falls from the 
serpent till a new one is formed ; " but it demands men and 
women enthusiastic and full-orbed, who see in every soul a 
possible Christ, in every life a symbol-thought of God, in every 



SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 19 

well-timed bath a baptism, iu every clay a Sabbath, in every 
house a living temple, and in every heart an altar of worship 
whereon the fires of love and devotion are kept as incense 
eontiimally burning, making all life's hours precious like the 
Eastern fig-tree that bears in its bosom atonce.the beauty of the 
early bloom and the matured glory of most delicious fruitage — 
who are full of warm blood, deep sympathies, and great 
moral independence, whose arguments against home-sins 
hit, whose shots tell, eyes flash, words convince, lips per- 
suade, and inspirations touch the heart's best affections, 
calling down sweet love-baptisms from on high — who will 
speak the whole truth, as they see it, and actualize it in lives 
consecrated to divine uses, though the fire, the faggot, and 
cross are in full view — who, holy and rapt and mystic at 
times, as John of Patmos filled with ode, rhapsody and lyric, 
uttering from the depths of the inner consciousness divine 
principles, as with tongues of fire, causing them to sing 
through the corridors of the soul's memory-chambers, awak- 
ening to resurrectional beatitude all those finer impulses of 
kindness, forgiveness, and devotion to the right, the just, the 
true, and the beautiful, that slumber in the sacred heart of 
'our common brotherhood. Then will the kingdom of God, 
so long the burden of prophecy and prayer, become as prac- 
tical an institution as it is progressive on earth — the ideal then 
being realized now — all to the glory of our divine humanity. 

" The new is old, the old is new, 
The cycle of a change sublime, 
Still sweeping through !" 



Chapter ii. 



SPIRITUAL RATIOS. 



"All matter is God's tongue, 
And from its motion God's thoughts are suag. 
The realms of space are the octave bars, 
And the music notes are the sun and stars." 

The Infinite Spirit is the infinite substance of the universe, 
the only absolute reality, and Nature, as a garment, is the 
manifestation of this reality to the senses. The conscious 
human spirit, as the innermost of man, is an essential portion 
of the Infinite, pure and eternal — -a divine center — a celestial 
compass with an infinitude of points, bearing fixed relations, 
when in conjunction with grosser matter, to time past, present, 
and future. Time is not a thing per se, but only the record 
of a series of impressions made upon the spiritual sensorium, 

" All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." 

Each thus connected with all, and human nature the same 
in all ages, the present generation has much to do in turning 
to good account the gathered experiences of the past, in 
finding the " lost arts," and measuring the folly and wisdom 
of those ancient eras, though grayed with countless decades. 

Waves of progress, moving in cycles, continually overlap — 
the highest reaching the shores, and there writing their 
thoughts on crystal reams and defiant rocks. The past, then, 
with its long shadows — symbols, hieroglyphics, poetry, 

20 



SPIRIT OF THE AGE — SPIRITUAL RATIOS. 21 

paintings, proverbs and rabbinical lore — converges in the 
present. Aye, the grand old past! — it reaches down its 
multitudinous hands to us from the Atlantis, from India and 
Egypt, from Syria, Greece and Rome ; from bannered cities 
long sanded from sight ; from ancient temples whose golden 
gates dazzled like suns; from old Gothic cathedrals and 
Norman castles magnificent even in ruins. 

Unto us, from all surrounding zones, worlds and realms, 
have poured the streams of eternal life. Rock and ocean, 
storm and stars, light and darkness, saint and savage, god 
and demon, with the boundless and fathomless deeps of 
undying love, have all contributed to make up our physical, 
mental and spiritual organizations. To every point of the 
compass in the infinite domain of space, may souls send out 
their feelers and meet a glad response. 

Our particled bodies may exchange with the minerals, the 
soils, the fruits ; our spiritual structures, with the fine ethere- 
alized essences and ultimates that infill the surrounding 
regions; while the deific within, through aspiration and 
effort, may continually come into diviner rapport with the 
great, beating, throbbing, loving heart — the Infinite Soul of 
the universe — God. 

This true, the past, with its deep rich veins of experience, 
its half-buried yet glittering treasures, and 'its inexhaustible 
tomes of classic riches, is to us in value above what human 
speech can express, painter transfer to canvas, or author 
describe. The legitimate work of the historian is to unveil 
and present to the people of to-day a speaking panorama of 
the extinguished ages. This measureless period termed the 
pastj when organized and comprehended in its broadest sense, 
rounds up as the great drama of humanity — as the living epic 
of human progress — the forecourt of a more transcendent 
futurity. 

The historian, however, is not the bare fact-gatherer. 
Mere facts may be as devoid of scientific value as fictions. To 
reach truth there must be a selection of well-attested facts, 
with their just moral value affixed. These, put into the 



22 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

crucible of reason, systematized, grouped in order, and 
organized in accordance with the best methods of philo- 
sophic research, must also be critically weighed with reference 
to their producing causes. This done, they naturally 
crystalize into, harmonize with, and help constitute truth. 

While many spirit ripples have danced upon the sea of 
progress, three mighty waves have loomed up on the ocean 
of the ages — ancient, mediaeval and modern Spiritualism. 
The first, shedding its kindling glories in India, Egypt, China 
and adjoining nations, threw such an effulgence of baptismal 
beauty over the more cultured of those earlier civilizations, 
that all the subsequent declining eras were illuminated even 
down to the birth of the ISTazarene. Mediaeval Spiritualism, 
dating from the advent of Jesus, that eminent Judean Spirit- 
ualist, enriched the Platonic thinkers of Alexandria, enno- 
bled the statesmen of Greece, quickened the orators of Rome, 
encircled in light the footsteps of seers and martyrs, pierced 
with scattered sunbeams the gloom of the dark ages, inspired 
those old reformers, and tinged with a divine brightness the 
progressive movements that marked nearly twenty centuries 
preceding the "Rochester Rappings!" This last spiritual 
wave is familiar to us all. 



V 



ECTURE II 



Ancient Historic S 



NCIENT TTISTORIC OPIRITUALISM, 



J3hAPTEx\_ III. 



INDIAN. 

"Searching ancient records lately 

In a dusky nook we found 

An old volume grand stately, 

Iron clasped and parchment bound. 

" The five hundred million Brahminic and Buddhist believers hold 
all the gods, men, demons, and various grades of animated life 
occupying this innumerable array of worlds compose one cosmic family." 

India ! author of races — birth-place of art, science, sculp- 
ture, fragrant with the lotus — dreamy with emotions and 
aspirations kindled by the warmth of tropic suns ! Mother 
of religions, India abounded with the poetic, the visionary, 
the spiritual. 

Multiform are the evidences of a conscious communion 
between mortals and the inhabitants of the spirit world, 
blossoming along the borders of Time's earlier mornings. 
All things, from atoms to astral worlds, move in spirals — 
cycles being the subjects of law. 

"A spiral winds from the worlds to the suns, 
And every star that shines 
In the path of degrees forever runs, 
And the spiral octave climbs." 

Nations, as men, are born, grow, mature, and die ; or they 
ascend and descend, as sea waves rise and fall. There were 
golden ages with heroes, poets and scholars, thousands upon 

25 



26 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

thousands of years before the reputed Adam ate the "for- 
bidden fruit" that mellowed along the banks af the Euphra- 
tes. Plato, in the Timmpeus, speaks of a vast island, larger 
than Lybia and Asia combined, that, nine thousand years 
before his time, had its kings, priests, soldiers, arts, guardian 
gods and goddesses. This thickly-peopled isle, or, more pro- 
perly, continent, owing to a fearful earthquake or some other 
violent concussion of nature, sank in a single night into the 
ocean and disappeared forever. 

Le Can, an eminent Mongolian scholar, personally assured 
us that the Chinese measure time by dynasties ; that their 
sacred historical works, extending back in a line forty-four 
thousand years, contain many accounts of commerce ceasing, 
because of the sinking of large islands and the rising of 
immense continents from the ocean's depths. Among the 
most prominent of the great nations of old whose footprints 
were encircled in the light of spiritual phenomena and inspi- 
rational truths, uttered by seers, seeresses and oracles, we 
mention Egypt, China, India, Syria and Persia. These 
either carved their gospels in symbols and hieroglyphics, or 
penned them on scrolls — Vedas and Avestas. 

That profound linguist, Miiller, of All Souls' College, 
Oxford, says, " Every learned man knows that the Hebrew was 
not, as Jerome and other Church Fathers taught, the oldest 
or primitive language of mankind." The Sanscrit of the 
old Hindoos was a much more ancient and a far more perfect 
language. This was in its full flush of glory more than five 
thousand years ago. 

Even Sir William Jones awards to some books, now extant 
in Sanscrit, an antiquity of four and five thousand years. 
Rev. Mr. Maurice, as quoted by Higgins, thinks the Bhagavat 
Gita, so marvellously rich in thought relating to the immor- 
tality of the soul and pre-existence, was written over four 
thousand years since. That fine Scotch scholar, Lord Mon- 
boddo, wrote in 1792, that the " language of the ancient 
Brahmins of India was a richer and in every respect a finer 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM INDIAN. 27 

lano;uao;e than even the Greek of Homer." Another Euro- 
pean scholar of great renown says the Sanscrit was a written 
and spoken language hundreds of years before Abraham 
appeared on the plains of Shinar, and long before the Hebrew 
language had an existence. 

M. Ernest Renan, in his history of the " Shemitic lan- 
guages," says: " The birth-place of philosophy is India, amidst 
an inquisitive race, deeply pre-occupied by the search after 
the secret of all things; but the psalm and the prophecy, the 
wisdom concealed in riddles and symbols, the pure hymn, the 
revealed book, are the inheritance of the theocratic race of 
the Shemites — Assyrians, Chaldees, Arabians, Hebrews and 
cognate tribes." He further adds : "The Shemite race has 
neither the elevation of Spiritualism, known only to India, nor 
the feeling for measure and perfect beauty bequeathed by 
Greece to the ]S~eo-Latin nations." 

It is generally conceded by all learned Orientals that a 
large portion of the writings of the Brahmins is anterior to 
any part of our Bible. In style and spirit they are eminently 
superior, abounding in the grandest conceptions of Deity, 
and in communications from the gods, demi-gods, manes and 
spirits. The Yedas, Puranas, Upanishads, Rig-Veda Sanhita, 
Bhagavat-Gita, Ramayanna, etc., are full of myths inlaid 
with spiritual thoughts and sublime spiritual ideas, such as 
"Spirit moving upon chaos and fashioning forms" — the 
"girdles and spheres" encircling the earth — the "power of 
the gods to clothe themselves in a luminous ether" and 
appear to mortals — "the celestial state of eighty-eight thou- 
sand saints," the holiest of the Brahmins, and their descent 
to guard cities and guide the young. The Puranas also 
describe the oblations offered and the methods devised to 
dispossess "malignant spirits and enemies of the deities." 
(Vishnu Purana, p. 329). 

Long before the patriarchs pitched their tents under Syrian 
skies, long before Moses saw the tables of stone on the Mount, 
long before the oldest Hebrew prophets were inspired to 
sound the alarm in Judean mountains, there were millions 



28 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

of Spiritualists, prophets, yogees, sages, seers and mediums, 
in India. What is more, Abraham himself was, without the 
least doubt, a Brahmin. The scholarly Higgins proves this 
beyond a cavil in his very labored work, the " Anacalypsis." 

Terah, the father of Abraham, came from an Eastern 
country called Ur. Higgins clearly proves that this Ur of 
the Chaldees was in India, that portion of the country lying 
on the river Jumna and now called Uri, or Ur. Abbe Du- 
bois states that the Hindoos in their earliest times had no 
images. They worshipped the one God as Divinity in duality, 
positive and negative — father and mother. Abraham refused 
to worship the female principle in the Godhead. He became 
a Protestant Hindoo, a wandering pilgrim, and accordingly 
emigrated from Ur in India to Haran in Assyria ; from 
thence to Phoenicia, and finally into Egypt, nearly 2,000 B. 
C, in consequence of a terrible famine; and in all his jour- 
neyings he took with him the belief in and practice of the 
mysteries and spirit communion he had been taught in India. 
Therefore we read in the Old Testament that " the Lord ( a 
spiritual being) appeared to him on the plains of Mamre." 
Also when he sat in the door of his tent, he lifted up his eyes 
and looked, and lo, three men stood before him; and when he 
saw them — that is, these three spirits — "he bowed himself 
towards the ground." 

The history of the Phoenicians and the Assyrians (Assur- 
ians or Assoors from India) has reached us only in fragments, 
and these through that voluminous author Sanchoniathan, that 
lived long prior to Moses ; and Berosus, the Babylonian histo- 
rian. Porphyry says, Sanchoniathan received much of his 
information from Hierombalus, a priest of Iao, that is, Jeho- 
vah; accordingly, with deep insight, the sect of learned Gnos- 
tics taught, that this Iao, or Jehovah of the Jews, was the "name 
of an angel.'" This shows that Sanchoniathan was a mystic 
and medium, as well as historian. It is clear from both 
Sanchoniathan and Berosus, that the Phoenicians, full five 
thousand years since, engaged in an extensive commerce. 
Modern exhumations and discoveries in Peru, Mexico and 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM INDIAN. 29 

other portions of the American continent, obviously demon- 
strate, as shown by symbols of sun-worship carved upon 
rocks, that they pushed their shipping all along our western 
sea-coasts. Wherever they anchored they left their ideas 
of magic and spirit intercourse. 

« Light 
"Sprung from the deep, and from her native East, 
To journey thro' the airy gloom began." 

In Pococke's "India in Greece," the author, from a 
translation of documents existing in the Sanscrit, proves 
conclusively that, 

"In the great conflict between Brahniinieal and Buddhistic sects in 
India, the latter being defeated, emigrated in large bands, and colonized 
other countries. It is demonstrated in this work that the principal 
locality from which this emigration took place was Afghanistan and 
North-western India; that the Indian tribes proceeding thence colo- 
nized G-reeec, Egypt, Palestine and Italy; that they also produced the 
great Scandinavian families, the early Britons inclusive; and that they 
carried with them to their new settlements the evidences of their 
civilization, their arts, institutions and religion." 

Herodotus informs us that, in the lofty tower of Belus in 
Babylon, there was a consecrated room upon the summit in 
which was an oracular gold table; and here a woman of 
priestly office stayed each night to obtain information from 
the presiding deity. A similar apartment adorned the 
Temple of Jove at "Thebes, in Egypt, and other Nilotic 
cities. These media, virtuous in habit, accustomed to 
fasting and bathing, and other purifications, before divining 
or conversing with the gods, to give information, were 
required, in accordance with the laws of the country, to 
occupy those temples the night previous to the enhancement. 
This more thoroughly magnetized them. The teachings 
then brought from the world of spirits were considered 
sacred. 

"I have seen," said Apollonius, " the Brahmins of India, dwelling on 
the earth and not on the earth, living fortified without fortifications, 
possessing nothing and yet everything." This he spoke somewhat enig- 
matically; but Damis (the companion of his journey in India) says 



30 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

they sleep upon the ground, but that the earth furnishes them with a 
grassy couch of whatever plants they desire. That he himself had seen 
them, elevated two cubits above the surface of the earth, walk in the 
air ! not for the purpose of display, which was quite foreign to the 
character of the men; but because whatever they did, elevated, in 
common with the sun, above the earth, would be more acceptable to 
that deity. * * * Having bathed, they formed a choral circle, 
having Tarchas for their coryphaeus, and striking the earth with their 
divining rods, it rose up, no otherwise than does the sea under the 
power of the wind, and caused them to ascend into the air. Meanwhile 
they continued to chant a hymn not unlike the paean of Sophocles, which 
is sung at Athens in honor of iEsculapius." (Philostrat. Vita 
Apollon. Tyanens. Lib. iii. c. 15, 17.) 

Without the light of Spiritualism, the above statements 
can be regarded in no other sense than chimeras of heated 
imagination in an age of superstition; but now they appear 
as embodied facts traceable to causes which our philosophy" 
analyzes. As a common magnet will lift up a piece of steel, 
so by spirit attraction did Jesus walk upon the sea; and as a 
table, or other object by invisible hands, under the same 
law, is carried above the heads of the spiritual circle, so were 
the Brahmins of India floated in the air, which many a 
medium to-day can testify is true. How beautiful is history 
under the light of Spiritualism! "We seem now to feel the 
very breath and heart-beats of those olden seers ! 



JChaptef^ IV. 



EGYPTIAN. 



"■The Egyptian soul sailed o'er the skyey sea 
In ark of crystal, manned by beamy gods, 
To drag the deeps of space and net the stars, 
Where, in their nebulous shoals, they share the void, 
And through old Night's Typhonian blindness shine." 

"Old sphinxes lift their countenances bland, 
Athwart the river-sea and sea of sand." 

"Those mystic, stony volumes on the walls long writ, 
Whose sense is late revealed to searching modern wit." 

If there is a charmed country beneath the bending skies, 
it is Egypt — land of the jSTile and the Pyramids, of the Pha- 
raohs and the Ptolemies — land where art and science gloried 
in splendid achievements before our historic records, and 
whose powerful dynasties held sway for long generations 
over fertile valleys and mighty cities. Thebes, the hundred 
gated, Heliopolis with its magnificent temples, Memphis with 
its shining palaces and evergreen gardens, left memorials so 
wondrous that the men of to-day are attracted thither — to 
Luxor and Carnak, to the avenues of sphinxes and the 
summits of the pyramids; 

Egypt, whose mystic hierophants vied with the gymnoso- 
phists of India — whose "lost arts" have never yet been 
discovered — whose learning 

"Uttered its oracles sublime 
Before the Olympiads, in the dew 
And dusk of early time," 

31 



32 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

had a civilization more than five thousand years ago, which, 
in some respects, was in advance of ours to-day. In this 
remote time none were admitted to judicial ofiices save men 
of integrity and great erudition. The bench consisted of 
thirty judges, ten chosen from each of the three greater cities, 
Thebes, Memphis and Heliopolis. Being duly elected, they 
were paid by the State. Counsel was employed and justice 
dispensed gratuitously to all. Thus rights were as accessible 
to the poor as to the rich. In judicial administration, what a 
lesson this to Americans so given to boasting and blundering 
in their selection of officers ! " The very spirit of their laws," 
says Wilkinson, "was to give protection and assistance to 
the oppressed ; and everything that tended to promote an 
unbiassed judgment was peculiarly commended by the Egyp- 
tian sages." Is it strange, then, that Abraham, the Patriarch, 
journeyed down into Egypt; that Pythagoras spent twenty- 
two years among her priests and seers; that Moses was 
learned in the "wisdom of the Egyptians," and Solon, the 
great lawgiver of Greece, was taught that the Greeks of his 
time were in philosophy but children ? 

Through all the palmy days of Egypt's grandeur, Spirit- 
ualism, in some form, was the universal belief. The more 
wise and profound had it under their special supervision. 
One of her most ancient seers stated, that "this earth was 
surrounded by aerial circles of ether, and that in these ether 
regions the souls of the dead lived and guarded mortals." 
Hermes taught "that this visible is but a picture of the 
invisible -world, wherein, as in a portrait, things are not truly 
seen." 

Herodotus mentions a celebrated Egyptian king who 
descended to the mansions of the dead, and, after some stay 
in those spirit realms, returned to light. The anniversary 
of this return was held as a sacred festal day by the ancient 
Egyptians, as Christians hold feasts and fasts. 

Strabo states that in the temple of Serapis at Canopus, 
"great worship was performed; many miraculous works 
were wrought, which the most eminent men believed and 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM EGYPTIAN. 33 

practiced, while others devoted -themselves to the sacred 
sleep" — that is, the unconscious trance. The consecrated 
temple at Alexandria was still more famous for its oracles, 
"sacred sleep," and the healing of invalids. 

In memory of Memnon, sometimes called by the Egyptians 
Amenophis, a great ruler, whose mother was Cissiene, and 
who laid the foundation of Susa, there was erected a famous 
statue at Thebes that gave melodious sounds when flrs-t 
struck by the sun's morning rays. Both spirit voices and 
spirit music were heard issuing from this Theban statue for 
hundreds of years. Greek travelers affirm positively that 
they heard this music even as late as their own day. It was 
evidently produced upon the same principle of voices heard 
in haunted houses. Strabo, .zElius Gallus, Demetrius, and 
other distinguished characters, testify to having listened to 
those melodious sounds in the early hours of morning. 
Those electric suu-flashes produced just the requisite condi- 
tions in the statue for musical manifestations. Upon a 
colossal column of Memnon, rashly broken by Cambyses, 
carved in Greek and Latin, testifying that the writers heard 
the heavenly voice at the first dawn of day, are two inscrip- 
tions, one of which reads as follows: "2, Publius Balbisues, 
heard ike divine voice of Memnon or Phamenoph. I came in 
company with the Empress Sabina, at the first hour of the sun's 
course, the 15th year of the reign of Hadrian, the 24-th day of 
Athyr, the 25th of the month of November.'" 

Hermes, who said, " creation is not a generation of life, 
but a production of things to sense, and making them 
manifest," thoroughly understood the philosophy of mag- 
netic sleep and trance. While the winged staff had a 
symbolic signification, the magic staff was most in use in his 
time. In the fifth book of the Odyssey, we have these lines: 

"Forth sped Hermes, and under his feet he bound his ambrosial sandals, 
Then taking his staff, with which he the eyelids of mortals 
Closes at will, and the sleeper's will re-awakens." 

Montfaucon and M. Denin, describing the temples of the 

Upper Egypt, clearly demonstrates that psychology, mesmeric 
3^ 



34 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

control, and clairvoyance were well understood by Egypt's 
scholars and priests, and that through these methods, with 
spirit intercourse, they received their knowledge of the unseen 
world and the art of healing, which they deemed prudent to 
withhold from the masses. On those time-defying paintings 
discovered among the ruins that fringe the Nile, are the 
figures of priests in the very act of operating by making 
magnetic passes; and others are seen in the process of being 
thrown into mesmeric sleep. Anubis is represented in those 
sacred pictures as tenderly bending over the bed and putting 
his hands upon the sick, as do the healers of this age. 

Emmanuel Rebold, M. D., President of the Academy of 
Industrial Sciences, France, speaking of that occult science, 
animal magnetism, says: "It is a science that for more than 
three thousand years was the peculiar possession of the 
Egyptian priesthood, into the knowledge of which Moses was 
initiated at Heliopolis, where he was educated." This 
accounts for much of Moses' wisdom, and also for his medi- 
umship, equaling in some respects that of Egyptian seers 
and hierophants. The light of this age clearly proves that 
the Jehovah with whom he so familiarly conversed was his 
spirit-guide, and was not very exalted in the sweet graces of 
charity and love; and that the "word of the Lord" that 
came to him, " saying" was merely the voice of this attend- 
ing spirit heard clairaudiently, as Socrates heard the 
admonishing voice of his good demon. We have authority 
for saying that this Jehovah of the Mosaic age, when on 
earth, was an Egyptian priest, by the name of Gee-ho-ka but 
neither of the noblest nor purest of the priesthood. 

The famed philologist, Kircher, in his " Odipus Egyptia- 
cus," gives the following accounts of gods, demi-gods, and 
genii of Egypt: "The Egyptians always held in great vene- 
ration certain temples and statues — these latter they called 
serapes; and over provinces, cities, temples, serapes, private 
houses, and especially men, gods, demons, and genii presided 
and watched as familiars, to guard from danger and give 
advice." Some of these were eventually worshiped by the 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — EGYPTIAN. 35 

less wise as private deities, having been ancestors departed 
from the earth to become gods. 

" The signs of those that are inspired are multiform. For the 
inspiration is indicated by the motions of the (whole) body, and of 
certain parts of it, by the perfect rest of the body, by harmonious 
orders and dances, and by elegant sounds, or the contraries of these. 
Either the body, likewise, is seen to be elevated or increased in bulk, 
or to be borne along sublimely in the air. An equability also of voice 
according to magnitude ; or a great variety of voice after intervals of 
silence, may be observed. And again, sometimes the sounds have a 
musical intention and remission." (Jamblichus de Mysteriis.) 

This is nothing at all remarkable, for bodies these days are 
not only borne aloft, but there are spirit-sounds, dances, and 
other phases of influence, exactly like the above descriptions 
of ancient Media. 

" The image of the god (Jupiter Ammon) is composed of emeralds 
and other precious stones, and gives oracles in a way quite peculiar. It 
is borne about in a golden ship by eighty priests ; who, bearing it upon 
their shoulders, go whithersoever the god (image) by nodding his head, 
directs them." (Diodor. Sicul. Lib. 17.) This is not much, even 
though Jupiter did it. About equivalent to tipping a light-stand, or 
moving some other small furniture." 

Within thirty-five years ancient Egypt has become better 
known to us than it was to the learned men of the Roman 
Empire; for we not only read its theology and philosophy in 
its hieroglyphics, but interpret more accurately by their aid, 
and that of the cuniform inscriptions, the ancient narratives 
of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus. Her temples, towers, 
relics, hieroglyphs and paintings, all unite their testimony 
with that of the Grecian historians in confirmation of the 
universal prevalence, in some form, of what is now denom- 
inated Spiritualism. It was God's living witness in remotest 
ages. It is his witness to-day by the mediation of angels, 
voicing the eternal truth of a conscious immortality. 



Lhapter y. 



CHINESE. 



" The awful shadow of some unseen Power 

Floats, though unseen, among us , visiting 
This various world with a constant wing, 

As summer winds that creep from flower to flower," 

" Meanwhile prophetic harps 
In every grove were ringing." 

Old as the rocks, gigantic in mental structure, sternly 
moral, China — circling coronal round the brow of nations — 
looms up before us an interminable panorama, unrolling 
religious scenery that enraptures every sense. The Chinese, 
through cycles of weary ages, have held conscious communion 
with the inhabitants of the heavens. 

After a voyage among the South Sea isles and along the 
Pacific coast, we were, in 1861, at Placerville, introduced to 
Le Can, a learned Mandarin, who graduated from a Chinese 
University, and was then employed as interpreter in the 
courts of California. Highly intelligent, he was proud of 
his national literature. The following conversation with 
him will never fade from our memory : 

" Have your people a Bible, or sacred books ? " 

" Certainly,, sir ;, the sacred books of the kings, and the 
divine teachings of Lao-tse, and Confucius." 

" Do they give any account of a flood occuring several 
thousand years since ?" 

"Most assuredly, sir; and not only one, but many floods, 
also of the sinking of islands, and the rising of continents- 

36 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — CHINESE. 37 

from the ocean. Physical convulsions were very frequent 
fifteen, twenty and thirty thousand years ago ! " 

" How far back does the history of your sacred books 
extend?" 

" Full forty-four thousand years ! " 

"Why, our historians give no account of your nation 
reaching into the distance so many thousand years ! " 

" Your historians ! When America was inhabited by Indians 
and Europe by barbarians, we were an old and matured 
nation. Civilizations, like individuals, have their mornings, 
noontides and declinations." 

" What do your sacred books teach ? " 

"Ours, with all other oriental scriptures, teach the existence 
of Grod, the necessity of morality, and the immortality of 
the human soul." 

" Do your people believe in any intercourse between the 
living and the dead ? " 

" They have always believed it ; and what now surprises 
you under the phenomena of Spirit Rappings is as ancient 
as our national records." 

Dr. McGowan, long a missionary in China and Japan, in 
a lecture delivered a few years' since before the Young Men's 
Christian Association of Chicago, 111., speaking of the arts, 
sciences, and wonderful ingenuity of the more ancient 
Asiatics, said : 

" The Chinese were well acquainted with the modes of table tipping 
now occurring in America, and have been for a great lapse of time. 
Their great teachers also many thousand years ago offered sacrifices and 
professed to hold actual converse with the departed of the future 
world." 

Gutzlaff affirms that they sacrificed on high mountain*, 
considered themselves surrounded by hosts of spirits, demons, 
gods, angels and invisible powers, and that spirits met them 
at their altars and presided over their temples. 

At a grand banquet given to Mr. Burlingame and his 
associates of the Chinese Embassy, in New York, the dailies 
reporting the speeches gave this Christian country some new 



38 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

ideas relative to China. Who are the heathen, Americai, 
Christians, or the Confucian Chinese ? Mr. Burlingame said - 

" The East which men have sought since the days of Alexander, 
now itself seeks the West. China, emerging from the mists of time, 
but yesterday suddenly entered your western gates, and confronts you 
by its representatives here to-night. What have you to say to her ? 
She comes with no menace on her lips ; she comes with the great 
doctrine of Confucius, uttered two thousand and three years ago, 'do 
not unto others what you would not have others do unto you.' * * 
I say that the Chinese are a great and noble people. They have all 
the elements of a splendid nationality. They are the most numerous 
people on the face of the globe ; the most homogeneous people in the 
world ; their language spoken by more human beings than any other in 
the world, and it is written in the rock ; it is a country where there is 
a greater unification of thought than any other in the world ; it is a 
country where the maxims of the great sages, coming down memorized, 
have permeated the whole people, until their knowledge is rather an 
instinct than an acquirement. They are a people loyal while living, 
and whose last prayer when dying is to sleep in the sacred soil of their 
fathers. It is a land of scholars and of schools ; a land of books, from 
the smallest pamphlet up to encyclopedias of five thousand volumes. 
It is a land where the priviliges are common ; it is a land without 
caste, for they destroyed their feudal system two thousand and one 
hundred years ago, and they built up their great structure of civilization 
on the great idea that the people are the source of power. That idea 
was uttered by Menchius two thousand and three hundred years ago, 
and it was old when he uttered it." 

An Oxford Professor, England, lecturing upon Orientalism, 
said : " Buddhist missionaries reached China from India, as 
early as the third century before Christ." The " language 
which the Chinese pilgrims went to India to study, as the 
key to the sacred literature of Buddhism, was Sanscrit." 

The Britaunica Encyclopedia avers that " Sir William Jones 
and others attribute to some of the works extant in Sanscrit, 
an antiquity of four and five thousand years." Speaking of 
the immense wealth and beauty of this language, Sir William 
further says : " The Sanscrit is of a wonderful structure, 
more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, 
and more exquisitely refined than either." One of the 
profoundest thinkers of Chinese antiquity appeared in the 
person of Lao-tse, between six and seven hundred years, 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — CHINESE. 3\r 

B. C. He was a great spiritual reformer, and, living a life of 
self-denial and contemplation, professed frequently to ascend 
into the immortal realms, and there live during brief seasons 
with the genii and seen-spirits and angels. Then he would 
return freighted with new ideas, teaching his countrymen a 
purer faith and diviner doctrines: His life was calm and 
beautiful. He taught alchemy and magic ; also maxims and 
morals so exalted that they called him a " doctor of reason; " 
and yet he strenuously insisted that all great religious and 
spiritual truths had been brought down to men from such of 
their honored ancestors as had become gods in celestial 
climes. 

The eminent Chinese sage, Confucius, was born the 19th of 
June, 551, B. C, at Shanping in the kingdom of Lu. The real 
name of Confucius was Kong, but his disciples called him 
Kong-futse, that is, Kong the Master, or Teacher, which the 
Jesuit missionaries Latanized into Confucius. Remarkable 
dreams and omens are said to have preceded his birth, and 
his origin, traced back by his disciples, was derived from 
Hoang-ti, a powerful monarch, of China, who flourished more 
than 2000, B. C. In the introduction to the " Chinese 
Classics," part 1st, Rev. Dr. Legge says : " Confucius, in 
his frequent references to heaven, followed the phraseology 
of the older sages, giving occasion to many of his followers 
to identify God with a principal of reason and the course of 
nature. * * * Along with the worship of God 
there existed in China, from the earliest historical times, the 
worship of other spiritual beings specially, and to every 
individual the worship of departed ancestors." In the 
Confucian Analects, (p. 57), Ke Loo asked about serving the 
spirits of the dead. The master said, "While you are not able 
to serve men, how can you serve their spirits?" Ke Loo 
added, " I ventured to ask about death." * * The 
master said, " How abundantly do spiritual beings display the 
power that belongs to them ! They cause all the people in the 
empire to fast and purify themselves; then, like over-flowing 



40 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

water, they seem to be over the heads, and on the right and 
left of their worshipers" — that is, admirers. * * * 
" He who attains the sovereignty of the empire, having these 
three important things, shall effect few errors under his 
government. His presenting himself with his institutions 
before spiritual beings, without any doubts about them arising, 
shows that he knows heaven." 



Chapter yi. 



PERSIAN. 



" I am of that impious race, 
Those slaves of fire, who, morn and even, 
Hail their Creator's dwelling place 
Among the living lights of heaven ! " 

" Such are the parables of Zartusht address'd 
To Iran's faith, in the ancient Zend-Avest." 

Persia is the region of bloom, of flowers, of fire-altars, ot 
sun-worshipers — where the tamirand, the date, the cassia, 
and the silken plantains of the valley mingle their loveliness 
in rich contrast with the fan-like foliage of palms, graceful 
as those that fleck "Araby's green sunny highlands." 

The Persians neighbored commercially with the Egyptians, 
and the "Jews came up out of Egypt." This accounts for the 
similarity traceable everywhere between the teachings of the 
Zend-Avesta and the Kabbala of the Jews. The Rabbins 
contend that the more philosophical portions of this latter 
work originated in heaven — that the angel Raziel instructed 
Adam in it; the angel Japhiel, Shern; and the angel Zedekiel, 
Abraham. Abounding in angelic ministrations, miraculous 
works, and profound mystical truths, the more erudite Jews 
considered the Kabbala as embodying the principles of all 
genuine science, and the true interpreter of the Hebrew 
Scriptures. 

The Persians were naturally a worshipful people. Their 
magi were their wise men. The Asiatic rendering of the 

41 



42 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

word signifies consecrated men, men devoted to the worship 
of God. Accordingly, the word magic originally signified 
the practice of worship, and the Magi of the East were those 
who devoted themselves to science and worship. 

Says Alger : Zoroaster prays, " "When I shall die, let Aban 
and Bahman carry me to the bosom of joy." It was a com- 
mon belief among the Persians, that souls were at seasons 
permitted to leave the under world, and the upper regions 
and visit their relatives on earth. 

The confusion relative to the time and teachings of Zoro- 
aster, has arisen from overlooking the well established fact, 
that there were certainly two, probably three, distinguished 
personages bearing the name. Zoroaster occurs as a royal 
name in the Chaldean lists of Berosus. Pliny, following the 
positive affirmation of Aristotle, declares that Zoroaster the 
firs*, flourished six thousand years before Plato. Hermippus, 
a man of great erudition, places him five thousand years 
before the Trojan war. Meoyle, Rhode, Volney, Gibbon, 
and other reliable scholars, concur in throwing him back 
into this vast antiquity. 

The great religious chieftain of Persia, called by the 
Greeks Zoroaster, and by the Orientals, Zendust, was born 
according to Herodotus, about the year 1250, and, according to 
other historic writers, full 1,400 B. C., in Aderbijan, ancient 
Media. Suidas terms him a Perso-Mede. His birth was 
announced to his mother in a wonderful dream. She also 
saw in vision a brilliant angel hurling a book at evil demons, 
and a youth rising up and becoming a mighty person in the 
lands of the Orient. Zoroaster was often warned in dreams; 
saw celestial spirits ; entered by trance into the heavenly 
world, and, being ushered into the presence of Ormuzd. 
conversed with him and his hosts of angels. The historian 
informs us that he obtained the commandments of the Aves- 
tan rolls from Ormuzd on a mountain, amid awful flames of 
light, as did Moses on Mt. Sinai. 



ANCI1NT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — PERSIAN. 43 

After a quiet retreat of /' twenty years duration," accord- 
ing 1 to Pliny, as a work of preparation by fasting and com- 
muning with heaven, he commenced the public propagation 
of his doctrines, at the age of thirty, in the capital of the 
kingdom of the Bactrians. His system was eminently spir- 
itual, abounding in revelations, prophecies and miracles — in 
visions, attending angels, good and evil spirits. Scarcely is 
a man dead, say the Zend books, " before demons good, or 
demons evil, come to possess him, and bear him to their own 
state of life." 

Richardson informs us "that, among other religious cere- 
monies, the Magi used to place upon the tops of high towers 
various kinds of rich viands, upon which it was supposed the 
Peris and the spirits of their departed heroes regaled them- 
selves." This corresponds with the scriptural account of 
Jesus' partaking of " broiled fish and an honey comb," after 
his resurrection. During the rise, the reign and fall of the 
Persian kingdom, the Magi, or media, were held in great 
repute, sitting often as counselors in the courts of kings. 

Magic was but another name for wisdom. The magic of 
the Persians and Chaldeans, says the scholarly Brucker, "is 
not to be confounded with witchcraft, or a supposed inter- 
course with evil spirits only ; it consisted in the performance 
of certain religious ceremonies or incantations, which were 
supposed, through the interposition of good demons, to have 
supernatural effects." Magic and miracle, dream and vision, 
prophecy and angel intercourse, blending with the Persian 
philosophy and theology as rainbow hues, were among the 
prevailing religious ideas of this powerful empire. From 
these the later Hebrew prophets, of Old Testament memory, 
borrowed largely. 



Chapter vii. 



HEBRAIC. 



" Who is he that cometh from Edoni ? with dyed garments from 
Bozrah ? traveling in the greatness of his strength." * * * 
"I have trodden the wine-press alone. Who hath believed our 
report V 

O Israel! how beautiful upou the mountains thy patri- 
archs, prophets, apostles ! What a lyrical sweetness, rich- 
ness of expression, moral grandeur of thought, flame through 
their language, bridging and brightening the historic passage 
of full four thousand years ! Abraham, girded with faith — 
David, poetic — Isaiah, inspirational — Ezekiel, psychologic — 
Daniel, prophetic — Jeremiah, sympathetic — Jesus, spiritual- 
istic — James, practical — John, pictorial and affectionate ; — all 
these starred the highway of their "Lord" with heavenly 
truths, voiced the word of angels from the Dead Sea to 
Gennesaret, shed upon their " promise land " a light that 
lingers now in vesper beauty there, but re-lit to blaze with 
loftier inspirations — a sun rising in the West. 

No scholars versed in Shemitic tongues, or well read in 
antiquity, will deny that the Hebrew scriptures are made up 
principally from religious records, superstitious relics, and 
the sacred books that long preceded them. Hence, Godfrey 
Higgins (F. R. Asiatic Society, Ana., p. 272) says, in refer- 
ring to Wilson's discoveries, " It is now certain that all the first 
three books of Genesis must have come from India." 

44 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRIT (TALlSM — HEBRAIC 45 

The dogmas, laws, rites, and ceremonies that characterized 
the Mosaic dispensation, were taken almost bodily from the 
mythic codes cf Egypt's priests and subordinate castes. Tbe 
deciphered hieroglyphs demonstrate this. The writings of 
the lesser Jewish prophets, booked in the Bible, are largely 
drawn from the symbols, wonders, night visions, and general 
religious literature of the older Persian Magi. To this end 
the author of the English Penny Cyclopedia informs us that 
u some of those prophecies recorded in the Bible were extant 
in books written long before the events took place to which 
they refer." 

Few historic facts are better established than that India 
colonized Egypt. After giving many sound reasons for this, 
Higgins states with emphasis, that " India was the parent of 
Egypt." Manetho, a man of great wisdom, Egyptian by 
birth, residing at Heliopolis in the time of the Ptolemies, 
yet writing his history in Greek, considered the Hebrews as 
low in caste,, a loose, war-like, wandering people, given to 
heinous vices. He further contends that this nomadic 
" nation, called shepherds, were likewise called captives in 
their sacred books." After "being driven out of Egypt," 
as the great Jewish historian Josephus admits, they jour- 
neyed through the "wilderness of Syria, and finally built a 
city in Judea, which they called Jerusalem." Professor 
Morton, an eminent scientist, giving us the representation 
of a mummied cranium, taken from one of the oldest 
Egyptian sepulchres, remarks: " This head possesses a great 
interest on account of its decided Hebrew features, of which 
many examples are extant on the monuments." The Egyp- 
tians being originally from India, and the Hebrews residing 
in, and then ultimately driven out from Egypt,, it is perfectly 
natural that the customs, and particularly the theological 
ideas of the Jews, relating to this and the future life, should 
in a great measure coincide with those of the riper and 
superior nations. 

The Pentateuch of Moses was nearly all made up from 
the Brahminical Vedas and Phoenician manuscripts, "In 



46 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Sanchoniathon," says Higgins, " we have, in substance, the 
same cosmogony for the Phoenicians as is found in Genesis. 
On this account the genuineness of his books has been 
doubted, but I think without sufficient reason." ( Anac. B. 8, 
C. 2, p. 391). Father Georgius, who was master of the 
Tibetian language, quotes the story of Anobret from San- 
choniathon, and shows that the Jeud of this forerunner of 
Moses, is the Jid of the Tibetians. Both Alexander 
Polyhistor and Abydene, the one a learned compiler in. 
Scylla's time, the other referred to for his wisdom by Euse- 
bius, agree to Sanchoniathon's ante dating Moses, and to the 
account of the deluge, and other portions of Genesis, being 
purely Chaldean, taken from "manuscripts of an almost 
infinitely remote period of time." 

The philosopher, Porphyry, student of Origen and Lon- 
ginus, writes (Lib. iv, Adv. Christianos), that Sanchoniathon 
and Moses gave the like accounts of persons and places, and 
that Sanchoniathon extracts his account partly out of the 
annals of the cities, and partly out the book reserved in the 
temple, which he received from Jerombalus, Priest of the 
God Jeud, who is Jao or Jehovah." 

Though the Jews were ever less spiritual than the inhab- 
itants of the sunny clime of India, less learned than the 
Egytians, less poetic than the Persians, they ever had 
among them rare spiritual gifts ; and all through that col- 
lection of books called the Old Testament, Spiritualism 
stands out prominent. Among the many, note the following 
passages : 

"And there came two angels to Sodom at even, and Lot, seeing them, 
rose up to meet them." — Gen. xix : 1. 

" And the Lord appeared to him (Abraham) in the plains. * * * 
And he lifted up his eyes aud looked, and lo ! three men stood beside 
him ; and when he saw them he ran to meet them from the tent door, 
and bowed himself toward the ground." — Gen. xviii : 1-2. 

"When Jacob was traveling to meet Esau, he beheld the angel of 
God, and said "This is God's host." — Gen. xxxii. 

" The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of 
the midst of the bush : the bush burned, but was not consumed. He 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM HEBRAIC. 47 

said, ' I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob ;' and Moses hid his face." — Ex. iii. 

" And the angel of the Lord found her (Hagar) by a fountain of 
water in the wilderness, * * * and said, ' Whence earnest 

thou V " — Gen. xvi : 7. 

" This Moses, whom they refused, * * * did God send to 
be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to 
him in the bush." — Acts vii : 35. 

" And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him." — 
Gen. xxxii : 1. 

" And as he (Elijah) lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then, 
an angel touched him and said unto him' ' Arise and eat.' " — 1 Kings 
xix : 5. 

" Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel 
of the Lord standing in the way," — Num. xxii : 31. 

Saul consulted a medium at Endor. 

"And she said, ' An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a 
mantle.' And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped 
with his face to the ground, and bowed himself." — 1 Sam. xxviii : 14. 

" Fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to 
shake. Then a spirit passed before my face. * * * It stood 
still ; but I could not discern the form thereof. * * * I 
heard a voice saying, 'Shall mortal man be more just than God V " — 
Job, iv : 14-17 

" While I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I 
had seen in the vision at the beginning, * * * touched me 
about the time of the evening oblation." — -Dan. ix : 21. 

" Then Nebuchednezzar spake and said, ' Blessed be the God of 
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who hath sent his angel and 
delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the King's 
word.' " Ban. x : 9-10. " Yet heard I the voice of his words, and 
behold a hand touched me." * * * " Then there came again 
and touched me one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened 
me." — Dan. x : 18. 

" And it came to pass, when I, even I, Daniel, had seen the vision, 
and sought for the meaning, then, behold, there stood before me as the 
appearance of a man. And I heard a man's voice between the banks 
of Ulai, which called and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand 
the vision." — Dan. viii : 15-16. 

" Yea, while I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom 
I had seen at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me 
about the time of the evening oblation." — Dan. ix : 21. 

A most interesting case of the return of spirits to mor- 
tals, is related of Ezekiel. On one occasion the " Lord," 



48 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

that is the ruling spirit of the Jewish nation, appeared to 
the prophet, and by the hair of his head floated him away 
to Jerusalem. 

" And he put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of 
mine head ; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the 
heavens and brought me in the vision of God to Jerusalem to the door 
of the inner gate that looketh toward the north." — Ezekiel viii : 3. 

Arriving at the temple after this serial voyage, he entered, 
and there stood before him seventy spirits, who appeared 
as men ; men who had lived many centuries before his 
time : 

" And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the 
house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah, the son of 
Shaphan, with every man his censer in hand." — Ezekiel viii : 11 

At another time, being in vision, having been carried 
thither as before, he saw five and twenty men, or spirits, some 
of whose names were given, who were known as conspicuous 
actors in the ancient days of Israel : 

" Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east 
gate of the Lord's house, which looked eastward : and behold at the 
door of the gate five and twenty men ; among whom I saw Jaazaniah 
the son of Azur, and Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah, princes of the 
people." — EzeMetxi: 1. 

About 3260, B. C, a powerful Mede, visiting Sardanapa- 
lus, reproved him for the luxuriousness of his court, and 
conspired with Belesis, of Babylonia, to overthrow him. 
Diodorus Siculus informs us, that when Sardanapalus heard 
of it, he laughed the whole thing to contempt, saying, an 
ancient prophecy, since confirmed by the voices of the 'gods,' 
had promised that Nineveh should never be taken by force. 
This exhibits the faith those old Assyrians had in omens and 
oracles from the immortals. 

Berosus states that the winds, aided by the gods, angels, 
or spirits, destroying the towers of Babel, introduced the 
confusion of tongues ; and that their wise men, in dreams 
and visions, frequently foretold the ruin of nations. 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — HEBRAIC. 49 

The terms gods, lords, angels, demons, spirits, were used 
interchangeably by Egyptian, Phoenician, Persian, and the 
more ancient Grecian writers. This understood, much of 
the mysticism connected with God and Jehovah, Lord and 
Angel, as used by theologians, is cleared away. In the Old 
Testament we read: "In the beginning Gods, (Elohim, 
plural) created the heaven and the earth." Hesiod has a 
poem entitled Theogonia, giving the "generation of the 
gods." "In the book of Moses," says that learned church 
authority, Calmet, "the name of God is often given to the 
angels. * * * Princes, magistrates, and great men 
are called gods. If a slave is desirous to continue with 
his master, he shall be brought to the gods. The Lord (an 
exalted angel) is seated amidst the gods, and judges with 
them." 

The testimony of the truly eminent Philo Judseus, relative 
to the identity of god, lord, angel, spirit, etc., is exceedingly 
important. We quote from Yonge's translation: "Those 
(referring to gods) of the most divine nature are utterly 
regardless of any situation on earth, but are raised to a 
greater height, and placed in the ether itself, being of the 
purest possible character, which those among the Greeks 
that have studied philosophy, call heroes and demons, and 
which Moses, giving them a most felicitous appellation, calls 
angels, acting, as they do, the part of ambassadors and mes- 
sengers. Therefore, if you look upon souls and demons and 
angels as things differing indeed in name, but as meaning in 
reality one and the same thing, you will thus get rid of the 
heaviest of all evils — superstition. For as people speak of 
good demons and bad demons, so do they speak of good 
and bad souls ; and also of some angels as being by their 
title worthy ambassadors * * * from God to men, 
being sacred and inviolable guardians ; others as being 
unholy and unworthy. Hence, the Psalmist David speaks of 
the 'operation of evil angels.' " 

In harmony with the above, from a different source, yet 
in confirmation of the same general idea, we quote from the^ 
4 



50 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

third volume of Plato, by Purges, Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge : " They are demons, because prudent and learned. 
* * * * Hence, poets say well, who say that 
when a good man shall have reached his end, he receives a 
mighty destiny and honor, and becomes a demon according 
to the appellation of prudence." 

Concurring with the general belief of those ages, the 
Grecian poet Hesiod, in his " Works and Days," says : 

"But when concealed had destiny this race, 
Demons there were, called holy upon earth, 
Good, ill-averters, and of men the guard." 

Also, this significant line occurs : 

" Holy demons by great Jove designed." 

Earnest Renan, one of the most eminent Shemitic schol- 
ars living, speaking, in his "Life of Jesus," of the group 
that assembled upon .the banks of Lake Tiberias to listen to 
Jesus says : " They believed in spectres and in spirits." 

These citations from Hesiod, Plato, and especially Philo 
Judseus, a few years the senior of the Galilean, clearly demon- 
strate the fact of the identity of gods, spirits, demons and 
angels, that there were good, learned, and holy demons, 
and those denominated unholy ; and that these demons, or 
spirits and angels, held intercourse with, and were the 
guardians of mortals. 

As a general thing, the magi, magicians, or media of 
Egypt, excelled Moses in the production of wonders manifest 
in the different phases of phenomenal Spiritualism. Tak- 
ing their account, they were doubtless always the victors. 
They certainly had several trials for the mastery. Accepting 
the scriptural rendering, it is evident that the wonderful 
works wrought by Moses were also accomplished, with 
hardly an exception, through the " enchantments" of Pha- 
raoh's "wise men and magicians." This enchantment was 
the mesmeric will-force — a part of the very "luisdom" that 
Moses had learned in Egypt. Psychologists are always aided 
more or less by their spirit guides. 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — HEBRAIC. 51 

Referring to the so-called miracles recorded in the '7th 
chapter of Exodus, we find that the magicians turned their 
rods into serpents (psychologically, of course); water into 
blood ; and produced the frogs also, with seemingly the 
same ease and celerity that Moses and Aaron did, and 
by the same psychologic law. But when the Lord, through 
Moses, commanded Aaron to u stretch out his rod" and go 
to manufacturing"^," the magicians begged to be excused; 
it was too small business — utterly beneath the magi, or 
media of old, proud and classic Egypt ! They would not 
thus degrade their psychologic knowledge — a portion of 
their sacred mysteries. To be sure Moses says they " could 
not" This is Moses' version of the matter, however, (if 
indeed, he ever wrote the Pentateuch); and Moses, holding 
himself in high estimation, wrote in his own interest; and, 
what is more, a man, courting fame, that could write an 
account of his own death and burial, is entitled,write what he 
may, to little credit. 

Never charmed with Moses' characteristics, we do not 
deny his mediumship, nor the truth of his frequent conver- 
sations with the "Lord God, face to face;" that is, his famil- 
iar spirit, but we rate it second to the mediumistic powers 
of the seers of Egypt and Persia, and immeasurably inferior 
to that of the Judean prophets. See the power of the gods 
when the Syrians came to seize Elisha : " When the servant 
had risen early and gone forth, behold an host encompassed 
the city, both with horses and chariots. And his servant 
said unto him, 'Alas! my master! what shall we do?' 

* * * u ^ nc ] Elisha prayed, and said, ' Lord, I pray 
thee open his eyes (clairvoyant eyes) that he may see.'" 
And the Lord, angel or spiritual being, opened the eyes, that 
is, the interior or spiritual eyes, of the young man, and he 
saw — saw because the inner vision was unsealed — and 
" behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of 
fire round about Elisha. — 2 Kings iv. 

Titus, in his address to his soldiers before Jerusalem, 
said , " For what man of virtue is there that does not know 



52 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

that those souls which are severed from their fleshy bodies 
in battles by the sword, are received by the ether, that purest 
of elements, and joined to that company which are placed 
among the stars ; that they become good demons, and pro- 
pitious heroes, and show themselves as such to their posterity 
afterward ?" — Josephus, B. vi : chap. 1., § 5. 

The Hebrew scriptures, Talmud, and Kabbala, all abound 
in dreams, omens, prophecies, angelic interpositions and 
spirit communications, often beautiful, and sometimes abso- 
lutely grand ; all of which bear a close resemblance in form 
and purpose to those more marked manifestations of spirit 
power, that threw such a transcendent glory over the older 
nations of Central and Southern Asia. " The most usual 
form," said the learned and Orthodox Calmet, "in which 
good angels appear, both in the Old Testament and ISTew, is 
the human form." It was in that shape they showed them- 
selves to Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Manoah the 
father of Samson, to David, Tobit, and the Prophets. The 
one that appeared to Joshua on the plain of Jericho, appeared 
apparently in the guise of a warrior, since Joshua asked 
him — "Art thou for us or for our adversaries ?" 

But enough has been adduced to prove that the Hebrew 
government, in all its religious and secular interests, was 
regulated by spirit oracles, and that these constitute the 
chief beauty of its administration. 

" There was a time when all mankind 
Did listen to a faith sincere, 
To tuneful tongues in mystery verse." 

But alas, how infidel now is the church that practically 
scorns the voice of faith ! Let Tertullian speak to such ; 
"Thou canst not call that madness of which thou art proved 
to know nothing." 



Lhaptef^ VIII, 



GRECIAN. 



" Go on, spotless mortal, in the path of virtue ; 
It is the way to the stars ; 
Offspring of the gods thyself — 
So shalt thou become the father of gods." 

"Then side by side along the dreary coast, 
Advanced Achilles and Patroclus' ghost, 
A friendly pair." 

Enchanted is olden Greece! Pre-eminently the land of 
poetry, painting and music, of art and witching song, her 
republics voiced the heaven-winged words of freedom long 
before the "Son of Man" said, "whom the truth maketh 
free is free indeed." Her classic mind drank deep of inspi- 
rations that gushed, fountain-like, from mountain, hill and 
vale, haunted by nymphs and sylphs — from sun-kissed seas 
peppered with ever-green isles embossed with rainbows 
under gorgeous skies, deific in guardianship. All things 
conspired to engender mental vivacity, genial heart, ajid 
aptitude for spiritual impression and culture. Incidental to 
these influences, the literature, attributed to the poets, histor- 
ians, tragedians, philosophers, statesmen and moral heroes 
of Greece, abounds in brilliant thoughts and the most 
sublime ideas, touching the invisible realities of the spirit- 
world. 

As Americans look to English universities for samples of 
highest culture — as Northern Europe once looked to Rome — 

53 



54 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Rome, in her palmiest periods, to Greece, and Egypt to 
India, so the literati and philosophers among the Greeks 
looked up and bowed in profound reverence before the 
authors, poets and long-treasured wisdom of Egyptian 
savans. Thither flocked the wisest of the Grecians to perfect 
their education both scientific and religious. The learned 
Jacob Bryant says: "The whole theology of Greece was 
derived from the East." Josephus wrote in his day: "All 
that concerns the Greeks, we may say is of yesterday only." 
He further assures us that the Greeks "acknowledged that 
it was not they, but the Phoenicians, Egyptians and other 
nations of antiquity, who preserved the most memorials and 
arts of mankind, and that from Egypt they themselves 
imported them; and that to those who introduced philos- 
ophy and the knowledge of things celestial and divine among 
them, such as Pherecydes the Syrian, Pythagoras and 
Thales, they were greatly indebted. All with one consent 
agreed that they learned what they knew of the Egyptians 
and Chaldeans, and wrote but little." Though tinged and 
tinctured more or less with the older philosophers of Egypt 
and India, Spiritualism was, for a long period, the universal 
religion of Greece. Hesiod flourished about 1000 B. C, 
and in his Theogony gave a faithful account of the gods 
(spirits) of antiquity. He himself consulted oracles, as to 
the future, and at a certain time the Pythia — priestess of 
Apollo — (that is, the female medium controlled by Apollo — 
an ascended mortal termed god) directed him to shun the 
grove of Nemean Jupiter, which he did, saving his life. He 
declares, himself prophetically inspired by the gods and 
goddesses, saying of the daughters of Jove : 

"They gave into my hand 
A rod of marvelous growth; a laurel bough 
Of blooming verdure ; and within me breathed 
A heavenly voice, that I might utter forth 
All past and future things, and bade me praise 
The blessed of ever-living God." 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — GRECIAN. 55 

Hesiod frequently breathes his firm belief in the tender 
watch-care of guardian spirits, as well as those that take 
cognizance of vice : 

"Invisible, the gods are ever nigh, 
Pass through our midst, and bend the all-seeing eye; 
The men who grind the poor, who wrest the right, 
Aweless of heaven's revenge, stand naked to their sight ; 
For thrice ten thousand holy demons rove 
This breathing world, the delegates of Jove. 
Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys 
The upright judgments and the unrighteous ways." 

Writing of the seers and sages of a past golden age, the 
spirits of which became the guardians of men, he says in 
his Works, Elton's translation : 

'• When earth's dark womb had closed this race around, 
High Jove as demons raised them from the ground 
Earth-wandering spirits that their charge began, 
The ministers of good, the guards of man. 
Mantled with mist of darkling air they glide 
And compass earth, and pass on every side; 
Kingly their state, and delegate of Heaven ; 
By their vicarious hands prosperity is given." 

The Arundelian marbles place Homer 907 B. C. Born at 
Bethsia, a village of Egypt, nearer the Red Sea than the 
Nile, he became a medium and seer at eight years of age, 
spirits appearing visible to him with harps and songs, indi- 
cating his future greatness. His earthly Egyptian teacher 
was Helecate, and his Grecian tutor, Myrah. Hesiod was 
his direct controlling or guardian spirit. In these breathing 
numbers, immortal utterances and matchless poetical combi- 
nations, Hesiod prompted him in the Greek, and Lucitan in 
the Egyptian, while intellectually and spiritually above them 
both, was one of those grand old Indian seers that had long 
summered in the heavens. This accounts for the striking 
resemblances between the Iliad of Homer and that great 
Brahminical poem of Valmike, entitled the Ramayana. 
All, versed in the Iliad and Odyssey, know they are all 
aglow w T ith oracles, prophecies, dreams — the descriptions 



56 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

.of gods, goddesses and demoils, and the interest they ever 
take in human affairs. The very warp and woof of the 
Grecian poetry and philosophy were spiritual, and hence 
their beauty and freshness to-day. 

Herodotus writes (Euterpe, 53) — "I consider Hesiod and 
Homer older than myself, by four hundred years. * * * 
They were the poets who framed the Hellenic theogony ; 
gave distinctive names to the gods; distributed amongst 
them honors and professions, and pointed out their receptive 
forms." Diodorus Siculus, in the seventh chapter of his 
first book, "asserts the same; that is, these historians mean 
to state that these poets did not invent, but arranged and 
detailed the knowledge of the gods," brought from India into 
Egypt; then from Egypt and Syria into their country by 
Orpheus, Danaus and Cadmus. Pherecydes, the early 
teacher of Pythagoras, flourishing some 600 B. C, taught 
the immortality of the soul, the guardian care of holy gods 
and demons, and is considered the first who wrote concering 
the nature of the gods in prose. 

Plato in the Timceus says: "That between God and man 
are the daimones or spirits, who are always near us, though 
commonly invisible to us, and know all our thoughts. They 
are intermediate between gods and men, and their function 
is to interpret and convey to the gods what comes from men, 
and to men what comes from the gods." 

In Plato's Apology and Republic (p. 31, 40, b. x. ), that 
great master Grecian says: " The demons often direct man in 
the quality of guardian spirits, in all his actions, as witness 
the demon of Socrates." * * * * "There are two 
kinds of men. One of these, through aptitude, will receive 
the illuminations of divinity, and the other, through inap- 
titude, will subject himself to the power of avenging 
demons." * * * * They (the poets) do not compose 
by art, but through a divine power ; since, if they knew 
how to speak by art upon the subject correctly, they would 
be able to do so upon all others. On this account, a deity 
has deprived them of their senses, and employs them as his 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITrALISM— GRECIAN. 57 

ministers and oracle singers, and divine prophets, in order 
that, when we hear them, we may know it is not they, to 
whom sense is not present, who speak what is valuable, but 
the god himself who speaks, and through them addresses us. 
We are not to doubt about those beautiful poems being not 
human, but divine, and the work not of men, but of gods; 
and that the poets are nothing else but interpreters of the 
gods, (that is, spirits,) possessed by whatever deity they may 
happen to be. 

The dialogue of Plato relative to the conversations of 
Socrates with his friends, contain the richest veins of spirit- 
ual truth. In the Phsedon, Cebes says: "Persuade us then 
not to fear death." 

"As for that," says Socrates, "you must employ spells 
and exorcisms every day till you be cured." 

"But pray, Socrates, where shall we meet an excellent 
conjurer, since you are going to leave us?" 

"Greece is large enough," replies Socrates, "and well 
stored with learned men. You must likewise look for a 
conjurer among yourselves; for 'tis possible there may be 
none found more able to perform those enchantments." 

"Do the souls of the dead have a being in the other world 



or no 



"It is a very ancient opinion that souls quitting this world 
repair to the infernal regions, and return after that to live in 
this world * * * * When a man dies, his mortal and 
corruptible part suffers dissolution, but the immortal part 
escapes unhurt and triumphs over death. * * * * The 
earth we inhabit is properly nothing else but the sediment 
of the other; that is, that pure earth above, called Ether. 
In this more perfect earth, everything has a perfection 
answering to its qualities. The trees, flowers, fruits and 
mountains are charmingly beautiful; they produce all sorts 
of precious stones of incomparable perfection of clearness 
and splendor; those we so much esteem, as jasper, 
emeralds and sapphire, are not comparable to them. * * 
They have sacred groves, and temples actually inhabited by 



58 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

the gods, who give (us) evidence of their presence by 
oracles, divinations, inspirations, and all other sensible 
signs." 

Referring to his eccentricities, Socrates says: "The cause 
of this is that which you have often and in many places 
heard me mention; because I am moved by a certain divine 
and spiritual influence, which also Melitus, through mockery, 
has set out in the indictment. This began with me from 
childhood, being a kind of voice which, when present, always 
diverts me from what I am about to do, but never urges me 
on. But this duty, as I said, has been enjoined on me by 
the Deity, by oracles, by dreams, and by every mode by 
which any other divine decree has ever enjoined anything for 
man to do." — Cary's Translation. 

Reasoning, he asked Miletus, "Do we not take these 
deities, or demons, for the gods, or the children of gods?" 

"Yes, doubtless!" 

" Therefore, you acknowledge," said Socrates, " that I 
believe there are demons, and that these demons are gods. 
* * * * j have likewise told you that I received my 
orders from God himself, by oracles, dreams, and all other 
methods Deity makes use of to make known his pleasure to 
men.'-' 

M. Dacier, in a note, (Apol. of Soc, p. 393) says: 
" Socrates learned of Pythagoras that demons, or angels and 
heroes — that is, devout men and saints, are the sons of God, 
because they derive from him their being, as light owes its 
origin to a luminous body." 

Socrates being inquired of why he busied himself so much 
in private, and did not appear in the conventions of the 
people, gives the following reason: 

" The thing that hindered me from doing so, Athenians, 
was this familiar spirit, this divine voice, that you have often 
heard of, and which Melitus has endeavored so much to 
ridicule. This spirit has stood by me from my infancy-. It 
is a voice that does not speak but when it means to take me 
otf from some resolution. It never presses me to undertake 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — GRECIAN. 59 

anything, but it always thwarted me when I meant to meddle 
in affairs of state." (Apol. Soc. p. 398.) 

Turning at a certain time to his friend Simmias, he dis- 
coursed thus of virtue and the future immortal life: "What 
I have said ought to sufficiently show that we should labor 
all our lives to acquire virtue and wisdom, since we have so 
great a reward proposed to us, and so bright a prospect 
before us. As for you, my dear Simmias and Cebes, and all 
you of this company, you will follow me shortly. My hour 
is come; and as a tragic poet would say, the surly pilot calls 
me aboard. It is time I should go to the bath; for I think 
it better, before I drink the poison, to be washed in order to 
save the woman the trouble after I am dead." 

Crito, inquiring what orders he had to leave with reference 
to his children and other affairs, further asked: "How will 
-you be buried?" "Just as you please," said Socrates, "if I 
do not slip from you." At the same time, looking upon 
them with a gentle smile, said: "I cannot attain my end in 
persuading Crito that this is Socrates who discourses with 
you ; * * * and still he fancies that Socrates is the 
thing that shall shortly see death. He confounds me with 
my corpse ; and in that view asks how I will be buried. And 
all this after the long discourse I made to you lately in order 
to show, that, as soon as I shall have taken the poison, I shall 
stay no longer with you ; but I shall part from hence and 
enjoy the- felicity of the blessed." (See Ap. Phedon, p. 247.) 

That erudite Platonist, Proclus, writing upon the demon 
of Socrates, commenced his forty-third chapter on the "The- 
ology of Plato" thus: "Let us speak concerning the demons 
who allotted the superintendance of mankind * * * The 
most perfect souls choose a life conformable to their presid- 
ing god, and live according to a divine demon. Hence the 
Egyptian priest admired Plotirius as being controlled (on 
account of the purity of his life) by a divine demon. And 
with great propriety also does Socrates call his demon a 
god, for he belonged to the first and highest demons. 



60 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Accordingly, Socrates was most perfect, being governed by 
such a presiding power, and conducting himself by the will 
of such a leader and guardian of his life." 

Remembering, then, that Pythagoras resided for a period 
of years in Egypt, that Socrates was personally acquainted 
with some of the disciples of Pythagoras, the anointed 
Samian, and that Plato was a pupil of Socrates, we perceive 
the naturalness of the descent from age to age of these 
spiritualistic teachings relative to the gods and demons — 
to their gentle guardianship and continuous converse with 
mortals, and the unspeakable blessedness pertaining to 
those Elysian fields that gladden with molten glory the 
homes of the angels. 

Jesus, borne in infancy "down into Egypt," early 
connected with the Essenians, afterwards initiated into the 
psychologic and mediumistic wisdom of the older Eastern 
mysteries, as well as conversant with those glittering 
thoughts that dropped like pearls from the pens of the 
Persian poets, naturally imbibed, in consonance with his 
susceptible organism, and taught some of the Platonian 
doctrines, among which was the "ministry of spirits," pre- 
existence, and the ascent of souls into that Paradisiacal 
house of " many mansions." 

Every scholarly theologian knows that the parables of 
Jesus, as well as John's Gospel, abound in Platonisms. 
Accordingly, the orthodox commentator, Dr. Campbell, 
frankly, yet doubtless unwillingly, confessed that, " Our 
Lord's descriptions of the abodes of departed spirits were not 
drawn from the writings of the Old Testament; but have a 
remarkable affinity to the descriptions which the Grecian 
poets have given of them." 

Nonnus informs us that " there was a statue at Delphi 
which emitted an inarticulate voice." The spirits were thus 
experimenting with the solid stone to produce a Memnon 
in Greece, as they do these days train the muscles which 
they wish to use in writing or speaking ; but doubtless found 
the material too perverse for their purpose. 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — GRECIAN. 61 

Epimenides, a prominent poet, living in Solon's time, 
possessed the remarkable power with which certain media 
of our day are gifted, of leaving his body, and, conducted by 
immortal guides, visiting friends gone before, vast galleries 
of art, and the magnificent temples of the ascended sages of 
antiquity. Those trances continued so long, and he revealed 
so strange truths upon returning into the mortal tenement, 
that he was held in high repute — almost revered among the 
Athenians during his life, and at death they gave him a place 
among their gods. The rarely endowed Hermodorus pos- 
sessed this same power. Aided by the controlling magnetic 
influences of spirit-guardians, he frequently quitted the phys- 
ical frame, and explored the matchless beauties that obtain 
in the land of souls. So Aristides the Just gives a full 
account, in the " Orationes Sacrse," of his visits to the heal- 
ing temples of ^Esculapius. Many of his dreams proved to 
be prophecies, and in his trances he mentioned things as then 
taking place in distant countries. These were afterwards 
verified, as in like cases with Swedenborg. 

In the night vision, Apollo and .^Esculapius came to Epi- 
menides and requested him to compose and sing verses; 
something which he had never thought of attempting in his 
normal state. He so did, however, with eminent success. 
His feelings, while in this inspirational condition, he said, 
were most delightful. After his sight was more thoroughly 
opened, he declared that Plato, Demosthenes and Sophocles 
often stood near the foot of his couch and conversed with 
him. All through his marked career immortal demons seem 
to have accompanied him, to whom he owed not only his 
health, but much of his wisdom. (See Aris., by Canter.) 

Thus runs Spiritualism through all Grecian history in 
converse with gods, angels, demons, spirits, and the appear- 
ance of apparitions, symbols and psychological forms, in 
connection with visions, trances and healings. The mythol- 
ogy of the Greeks, even with all its shadowy vagaries, was 
infinitely superior to modern theology. The clergy, with 
few exceptions, have persisted in wickedly misrepresenting 



62 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

the ethical teachings and theological doctrines that, prevailed 
in Greece for many centuries before the Christian era. 

Occasionally a clergyman has dared to be just. Such was 
the Rev. J. B. Gross. In his "Introduction to Heathen 
Religion," he says: "Perhaps on no subject within the 
ample range of human knowledge have so many fallacious 
ideas been propagated as npon that of the gods and the 
worship of heathen antiquity. Nothing but a shameful 
ignorance, a pitiable prejudice or the contemptible pride, 
which denounces all investigations as a useless or a criminal 
labor, when it must be feared that they will result in the 
overthrow of pre-established systems of faith or the modifi- 
cation of long-cherished principles of science, can have thus 
misrepresented the theology of heathenism, and distorted — 
nay, caricatured — its forms of religious worship. It is time 
that posterity should raise its voice in vindication of violated 
truth, and that the present age should learn to recognize in 
the hoary past, at least, a little of that common sense of 
which it boasts with as much self-complacency as if the 
prerogative of reason was the birth-right only of modern 
times." 

The aim of priests, in throwing contempt upon the 
mythologies of India, Egypt and Greece, was doubtless to 
enable them longer to continue their hold upon the mind 
through their superstitions, and the mouldy traditions of 
church fathers. But the great Newton said, that " ancient 
mythology was nothing but historical truth in a, poetical 
dress." Bacon said, it "consisted solely of moral and meta- 
physical allegories." The learned Bryant, as quoted by Sir 
William Jones, said, that "all the heathen divinities were 
only different representatives of deceased progenitors." 
Jamblichus, author of Life of Pythagoras, admits that 
the " gods and demons of the nrythologic ages, were the 
good and heroic of earth's immortalized, yet giving oracles 
to the living." 

From the facts adduced in Grecian history, we learn what 
the modern church of Christians dare not recognize, that the 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — GRECIAN. 63 

images of those ancient gods, some beautiful and others 
hideous, according to the plane of spiritual perception, were 
used as oracles, the same as tables, musical instruments and 
planchetts for spiritual communication, are these days. 
Theirs were doubtless better media, being forms of the 
spirits themselves, made by their order for mediumistic 
purposes. Originally, those "idols," as churchal worshipers 
scornfully call them, were the channels of sweet and holy 
communication with presiding angels once inhabiting the 
earth-sphere. 

Beda, treating of the "Seven Wonders of the "World," 
tells us, that, in the capitol at Rome, there were statues 
(mediumized by spirit magnetism) set up for all the prov- 
inces conquered by the Romans. These were images of 
their gods, on the breasts of which were written the names 
of the nations. On their necks little bells were hung, and 
priests were appointed to watch them day and night. When 
one of these rung by spirit influence, they knew at once 
what nation was about to rebel against the Romans, of which 
due notice was immediately given to the civil authorities, 
who made provision accordingly. 

By means of bells the spirits gave many of their commu- 
nications to the Jewish priests, whose garments were 
festooned with them, making music, under right conditions, 
delicious as that we these days hear at the musical 
entertainments of spiritual circles. 

M. de L'Ancre, in his book entitled " The Inconstancy of 
Demons and Evil Spirits," tells us, "That in the town of 
Bourdeaux, there was an honest canon of a church who had 
his house for sometime troubled (haunted) with spirits; and 
that, among other things, there was'heard almost every night 
a kind of music, like that of the espirut, set with little bells, 
so pleasant, that this partly took from him the fear and 
apprehension of the spirits." 

With the ancient spiritualists communications by sounds 
were carried to a high state of perfection, showing the 
delicacy of their spiritual batteries, and the beautiful degree 



64 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

of their musical science blending with their religion. 
Undoubtedly they discovered a certain mental ratiocination 
between sound and moral character, and made it practical 
in the methods above described. Developed by the Spiritual 
Philosophy, it is already known, that every person, as is every 
object in the outer world, is ensphered in an atmospheric 
magnetism exactly of the quality of the inner affection and 
the co-relative molecular texture of the body. The intona- 
tions of every person's voice is a sure index of such 
qualities — indeed of the very spirit itself. Man is organized 
on the eternal principles of music, and is keyed to certain 
grades of love and thought as a musical instrument to 
sounds which it is intended to produce. This spiritual 
keying of the character determines taste in music. Hence, 
certain sounds are agreeable to some; to others disagreeable. 
Deep, solemn psalmody, will stir the soul of the churchal 
worshiper; such sounds enter into rapport with him 
interiorly; hence the response. The lute or the guitar will 
better charm the passional lover or melancholy dreamer. 

Gottschalk, the great pianist, speaking of musical philos- 
phy, states that " the flame of the candles oscillates to the 
quake of the organ. A powerful orchestra near a sheet of 
water ruffles its surface. * * * The sound of the bassoon 
is cold; the notes of the French horn, at a distance, and of 
the harp, are voluptuous. The flute, playing softly in the 
middle of the register, calms the nerves." Swedenborg 
discovered the practicability of this musical ratiocination in 
the spiritual world, when he said, all the speech of the angels, 
" at the close of every senteuce, has its termination in unity 
of accent, which is merely in consequence of the divine 
influx into their souls respecting the unity of God." 

We see, therefore, a most beautiful truth in Jamblichus' 
explanation of musical divination by the use of priestly bells. 
He says in substance: "Various kinds of motions in the 
world answer to various orders of the gods. Melodies agree 
according to the principles of their motions (undulatory 
vibrations), and flow to certain gods to which they are most 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — GRECIAN. G5 

agreeable, or with which they are most in correspondential 
harmony. The gods being every where, bestow their gifts 
where the sounds and melodies chiefly agree to them. 
Being affected thereby, they insinuate themselves inspira- 
tionally into our spirits, and wholly work in us by their 
musical essence and power." 

Pythagoras maintained that a divinity lay hidden in these 
sacred ringings of bells on the statues, and in the ears they 
sounded as "the voice of the gods." 

Plutarch says, " their sound is only heard by those who 
keep their minds in a calm and composed state, undisturbed 
by passions." Then he avers we can hear the holy melodies 
of " sacred and demoniacal men." 

Luther being on an animal plane, coarse and vulgar, yet 
herculean in will, heard spirit sound answering exactly in 
quality of melody with this plane of his life ; and it was to 
him "as if a wind went out of his head, the devil driving 
it ! " 

Mahomet heard these melodies, whilst in a trance, giving 
him most heavenly answers to his questions. 

The beautiful legend of the ancients is not, therefore, 
without foundation in psychological law. The bells of their 
temples were consecrated to divine worship ; when, therefore, 
they were rung "offensive genii" took flight, affrighted at 
the sounds. "When the bell of the soul — the sensorium — is 
struck with angelic thought, there is a response with the 
angels, and all evil influences are repelled as darkness before 
the light of the rising sun. How natural then for those 
devotees to reverence these oracular images ! As they 
departed from the spiritual senses to the more external, the 
virtue of that worship dimmed into shadow and gloom, 
leaving only the bare image, void of soul, like the church to- 
day, worshiping symbols whose spiritual substance has 
departed; or, like spirit-rappings, and the other physical 
phenomena, when wretchedly abused by monopolizing and 
sensuous Spiritualists. Let us beware how we use the divine 
oracles, lest our worship be also meaningless idolatry ! The 



66 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

readers attention is called to the following facts, culled from 
the many, exactly parallel : 

" There are many oracles among the Greeks, many also among the 
Egyptians, many in Africa, and many here in Asia. But these give 
responses neither without priests, nor without interpreters. Here, 
however, Apollo is self-moved, and performs the prophetic office wholly 
by himself ; and this he does as follows : When he wishes to "com- 
municate," he moves in his place, whereupon the priests forthwith take 
him up. Or if they neglect to take him up, he sweats, and comes forth 
into the middle of the room ; when, however, others bear him upon their 
shoulders, he guides them, moving from place to place. At length the 
chief priest supplicating him, asks him all sorts of questions. If he 
does not assent, he moves backwards ; if he approves, he impels forward 
those who bear him, like a charioteer. Thus they arrive at responses. 
They do nothing except by this method. Thus he gives predictions 
concerning the seasons, foretells storms, &c. I will relate another thing 
also which he did in my presence. The priests were bearing him upon 
their shoulders — he left them below upon the ground, while he himself 
was borne aloft and alone into the air." (Lucian.de Syria Dea.) 

"A little before the misfortune of the Lacedaemonians at Leuctra, 
there was heard the clashing of arms in the temple of Hercules, and 
the statue of Hercules sweat profusely. At Thebes, at the same time, 
in the temple of Hercules, the folding doors, which were fastened with 
bolts, suddenly opened of themselves, and the arms which were hung 
upon the walls were found thrown upon the ground. There were other 
signs preceding this calamity. The statue of Lysander at Delphi, 
which the Lacedaemonians had placed there after his great naval victory 
over the Athenians, appeared crowned with weeds and bitter herbs, 
and the two golden stars which had been suspended there as offerings 
in honor of Castor and Pollux, who had assisted them visibly in that 
battle, fell, and disappeared." (Cicero, de Divinatione i. 94.) 



The cultured Greeks, eminently poetic and spiritual, 
cherished views concerning death quite similar to the spirit- 
ualists of this century. Plato was, to them, a central inspi- 
ration. Touched and thrilled by his sublime doctrines, they 
considered this world the only Hades ;■ heaven, their native 
home, and all death an ascent to the higher life. 

Avoiding descent for incarnation, and remaining on high, 
with the gods, was real life, because life in the spirit ; while 
descent into this world was death. Macrobius writes in hi& 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — GRECIAN. 67 

" dream of Scipio," " Here, on earth, Is the cavern of despair, 
the infernal region. The river of oblivion is the wandering 
of the mind, forgetting the majesty of its former life; and 
a thinking residence in the body the only life." (Lib. i. 
cap. 9). To the clear vision of those inspired Grecian's, dying 
was ascending to the soul's primal home — the society of the 
celestial gods in the starry regions of measureless space. 



Lhaptejr IX. 



ROMAN. 

" For thrice ten thousand holy demons rove 
This breathing world, the delegates of Jove, 
Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys 
The upright judgments and the unrighteous ways." 

" Thus we-see how man's prophetic creeds 
Made gods of men, when Godlike were their deeds." 

Rome ! proud, imperial, seven-hilled — Rome ! that with 
nod could crown kings and bury empires — Rome! boastful 
of her Cicero and her Csesars — Rome ! that humbled Carth- 
age — Rome ! with her deep blue skies, southern winds, and 
ruins rich in ancient legends .! she accepted, even In her most 
famous ages, Greece for her schoolmaster. Her philosophy, 
religion, science, art, and poetry — her dramas, and even the 
very laws so long honored in Athens, were brought from 
Greece and introduced among the Romans more than three 
hundred years before Christ. Greek art was copied by 
Roman artists. Greek professors taught the Grecian philoso- 
phy to the more promising of the youth of Rome, and all 
were taught to respect the oracles and reverence the gods 
and genii that appeared to, guarded, and conversed with 
mortals. 

Sallust, a Platonic philosopher, author of a treatise " On 
the Gods and the world," says: "But we, when we are good, 
are conjoined with the gods through similitude; but when 
evil, we are separated from them through dissimilitude. 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — ROMAN. 69 

And while we live according to virtue, we partake of the 
gods, but when we become evil, we cause them to become 
our enemies; not that they are angry, but because guilt pre- 
vents us from receiving the illuminations of the gods, and 
subjects us to the power of avenging demons. * * 

" Since the providence of the gods is every where extended, 
a certain latitude, or fitness, is all that is requisite in order to 
receive their beneficent communications. But since so much 
providence is displayed in the last things, it is impossible that 
it should not subsist in such as are first: besides, divinations 
and the healing of bodies, take place from the beneficent 
providence of the gods." 

Cicero says : — "Now, as far as I know, there is no nation 
whatever, however polished and learned, or however barba- 
rous and uncivilized, which does not believe it possible that 
future events may be indicated, understood and predicted by 
certain persons." — De Divinatione, lib. 1. 

He further says, "To natural divination, belongs that 
which does not take place from supposition, observations, or 
well-known signs ; but arises from an inner state and activ- 
ity of the mind in which men are enabled by an unfettered 
advance of the soul to foretell future things. * * * If 
we turn to ridicule the Babylonians and Caucasians, who 
believe in celestial signs, and who observe the number and 
course of the stars ; if, as I said, we condemn all these for 
their superstitions and folly, which, as they maintain, are 
founded upon the experience of fifty centuries and a half; 
let us, in that case, call the belief of ages imposture — let 
us burn our records, and say that everything was but imag- 
ination. But is the history of Greece a lie, when Apollo 
foretold the future through the oracles of the Lacedaemo- 
nians and Corinthians ? I will leave all else as it is, but this 
I must defend, that the gods influence and care for human 
affairs. The Delphian oracle would never have become so 
celebrated, nor so overwhelmed by presents from every king 
and every nation, if every age had not experienced the truth 
of its predictions." 



70 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Among the most noted of the ancient oracles were Delphi, 
Doclona and Trophonius. Delphi was situated at the foot of 
Mount Parnassus, historic as one of the haunts of the 
muses. Upon this mountain there was a cave, from which 
arose electric exhalations intoxicating the brain. It was dis- 
covered by a shepherd youth, who, upon experiencing its 
influences, was caused to pronounce strange words, and 
foretell future events. Around this cave were erected 
several temples, one of which was magnificent. To it, all 
nations flocked for responses. Apollo, a Grecian god, was 
the spiritual intelligence that gave the oracle. Poets, ora- 
tors, and generals frequently consulted the Delphian medium, 
receiving responses and prophecies. This medium, through 
whom the oracle was delivered, was a priestess called Pythia. 
Apollo did not always give the communications orally, but 
impressed the leading ideas upon her mind, and she uttered 
them in her own language, thus affecting or stamping them 
with her own peculiarities. 

The Pythia prepared herself for the spiritual control of 
Apollo by purifications and fastings ; then, being so charged 
by him with the electric fluid, that her hair stood upright, 
eyes wild, and even the foundation of the temple shaking, 
she uttered strange, mystic words, which were collected by 
prophets and poets, and woven into verse. Here is a sample, 
designed to inspire the halting nature of Agesilaus: 

'• Sparta, beware, though thou art fierce and proud, 
Lest a lame king thy ancient glories shroud ; 
For then 'twill be thy fate to undergo 
Tedious, turmoil of war and sudden woe." 

Plutarch, as translated from the Greek by Philips, gives 
the reason why the Pythian priestess ceased her oracles in 
verse. The classical Anthon says, that besides the " Sacred 
Oaks" at Dodena, "dreams, visions, and preternatural 
voices also announced the will of the divinities." These 
oracles continued to speak from the immortal realms, as may 
be proven from Plutarch and Suetonius, long after the 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM ROMAN. 71 

advent of Christianity. Nero and Julian both consulted 
them and received satisfactory answers. It also appears 
from the edicts of the Emperors Theodosius, Gratian and 
Valentinian, that oracles existed and were consulted as late 
as A. D. 358. These, in fact, have existed in all ages and 
under all civilizations, as ancient records demonstrate. They 
were simply phases of mediumship. The utterances of these 
lords, gods, angels, demons, and spirits, have been termed, in 
different periods, oracles, scriptures and inspirations. 

The Romans, ambitious for fame, not only consulted the 
prophetic spirits of their own empire, but each year sent 
authorized individuals, as embassadors extraordinary, to 
consult with the most noted oracles of Greece. Livy's his- 
tory of Rome covers a period of time six hundred years from 
the laying of its foundation to the date of its highest mili- 
tary power as a commonwealth, and that popular English 
writer, Wm. Howitt, tells us that " in Livy alone he had 
marked above fifty instances of his record of the literal ful- 
fillment of dreams, oracles, prognostics, by soothsayers and 
astrologers." 

The Rev. E. L. Magoon, in his " Grand Drama of Human 
Progress," writing of Romulus, says : 

" We are told by Livy, that soon after his disappearance 
from among men, the spirit of Romulus visited the distin- 
guished senator, Proculus Julius, and addressed him as 
follows : — ' Go, tell my countrymen it is the decree of 
heaven, that the city I have founded shall become the mis- 
tress of the world. Let her cultivate assiduously the mili- 
tary art. Then let her be assured, and transmit the 
assurance from age to age, that no mortal power can resist 
the arms of Rome.' Strict and persevering obedience to 
this counsel eventually caused that colossal power to extend 
itself from Siberia to the Great Desert, and from the Ganges 
to the Atlantic." 

When the Roman Emperor Tiberius left the city for 
Capreee, the soothsayers — a certain order of mediums gifted 
with the power of foretelling the future — said, with deep 



72 DOCTRINES OP SPIRITUALISTS. 

solemnity, he would never again enter the eternal city. 
This, Tacitus admits, was literally fulfilled. These are his 
words : " That Tiberius Would return no more was, as 
prophesied, verified by the event." Further illustrating the 
peculiarities of Tiberius' life, in the sixth book of the 
Annals, and weighing the testimony as to oracular prophe- 
cies, and also to what extent gods and demons exercised 
guardianship over and came into conscious relations with 
mortals, he adds : 

" That though what is foretold and the events that follow 
may often vary, the fallacy is not to be imputed to the ar 
itself (that is, the truth of mediumship), but to the vanity 
of pretenders to a science respected by antiquity, and in 
modern times established by undoubted proof." 

The principal events pertaining to the reign of Nero were 
foretold by the son of Thrassalus, a noted prophetic seer of 
that time. 

Pliny the younger relates marvelous things that occurred 
within his range of knowledge, as foretold by oracles or 
predicted in visions and dreams. 

The assassination of Caracalla was foreshadowed to him in 
a dream. 

Sylla was apprised of his death by a strange vision the 
very night before his departure from earth. 

Also, on the night that Attila passed to the sunlit shores 
of immortality, Marius dreamed that Attila's bow was 
broken ; and according to Plutarch, Brutus himself, in a 
grim twilight hour, was met by Caesar's spirit, that said, 
"I shall meet thee at Philippi !" and at Philippi Brutus 
fell 

Presentiments, spirit voices, portents, bodings, visions, 
dreams and shadowy warnings have frequently preceded 
individual and almost uniformly national disasters. 

Vespasian, probably the most unassuming, and certainly 
one of the most eminent, of the Eoman emperors, was the 
possessor of several mediumistie gifts, the most prominent 
of which were seeing and healing. Several instances are 



ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM — ROMAN. 73 

recorded of his restoring the sick and causing the blind to 
see by spirit power. While in Alexandria he restored a 
paralytic hand by a simple touch. Both Suetonius and 
Strabo confirm these accounts. The critical Tacitus, writing 
of Vespasian and his spiritual endowments, relates the fact 
of his distinctly seeing Basilides clairvoyantly, when many 
miles distant in body. He also mentions his bringing sight 
to the ray less eyes of an Alexandrian moviug in the humbler 
walks of life, who came to him by the advice of Serapis, a 
departed spirit, highly esteemed among the Egyptians. 
These, and multitudes more of so-called miraculous works, 
are much better attested by history than those ascribed to 
the Man of Nazareth. All are entitled to more or less 
credit. Tacitus further says, that Vespasian concluded that 
the gods had favored him with supernatural vision, and 
divine gifts, which gave him confidence that his future 
reign would be cared for by the gods, and such guardian 
demons as inhabit the higher elysian lands of heaven. 

Based upon research, then, and in the exercise of our best 
judgment, we accept as true most of the wonders, prodigies, 
visions, trances, spiritual gifts and superhuman works of 
those elder ages, that (preceded by trials and crosses) ulti- 
mately crowned the mediumistic and martyred of India, 
Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome and Judea — accept them, 
whether carved on pyramids, penned on parchment-scrolls, 
or written in Biblical or Sybilline books — accept them, first, 
because conformable with the clearest methods of spiritual 
analysis and humanity's divinest intuitions; and secondly, 
because reasonable — because corroborated by hosts of eye- 
witnesses in all ages and countries, and confirmed by thou- 
sands of media in the present. The general law is ever 
the same; the mingling of races in connection with country, 
civilization and other conditions, have merely modified the 
manifestations. Jesus declared that "greater works" than 
his should be done in the future. 

But why adduce further testimony? The historic past is 
comparable to a measureless wilderness, all dotted and 



74 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

gemmed with valleys and mountains, flowers, fruits, and 
crystal streams, symbolizing immortal truths — truths with 
millions-phased fore-gleams and finger-marks demonstrating 
an actual converse with those exalted and immortalized souls 
that traverse the upper kingdom of God ! Hence, Sophocles 
affirmed that — 

" This is not a matter of to-day, 
Or yesterday, but hath been from all time." 

And Hesiod, in strains as mellifluous as undying, told of — 

" iErial spirits designed 
To be on earth the guardians of mankind." 

—while the grandly inspired Goethe sang in sweet refrain — 

" The spirit world is not closed — 
Thy sense is closed — thy heart is dead." 



y 



ECTURE III. 



Christian S 



HRISTIAN QPIRITUALISM. 



Chapter x. 



THE FORESHADOWING. 



"God has taught but one religion, 
One in every age and land. 

***** 

God has written but one Bible — 
Love— compressed in one quick word." 

Religion is natural. The religious sentiment is an essen- 
tial principle of the human soul. Like the true and the 
beautiful, like moral consciousness, it is in humanity perma- 
nent, eternal. 

Life's emotional stream from the manger in Nazareth to 
the " rappings " in Rochester, has been bridged with 
startling, spiritual phenomena. So devious its windings, the 
patient student of antiquity often wearies in tracing it 
among the lights and shadows that alternately dance in 
brightness, or darken into sullen midnight along its shelving 
shores. 

The genuine historian living in two worlds— the past and 
the present — is necessarily philosophic and imaginative, paint- 
ing visible forms, as well as transcribing passing events. 
Though gathering these, and weighing facts correctly — 
the hard granitic facts characterizing given epochs — he 
experiences deeper delights in arranging them in orderly 
series, and deducing therefrom such great logical conclusions 
as tally with the mighty march of the ages. 

During those fearful medigeval years, when a cultured 
paganism and Pauline Christianity, brooded by a chrysalis 

77 



78 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

papacy, were struggling for social and political mastery, there 
were treasured in costly tomes the records of strange psycho- 
logic wonders, inner visions, imperial prophecies, and grand 
demonstrations of immortality. These, exhumed and ana- 
lyzed under the meridian sun of this century, stand as 
phenomenal witnesses of spirit intercourse — echoes from the 
gods flowing in melodious lights, and flaming with promise 
along the stately steps of humanity. 

The nights of those dust-buried centuries had their stars ; 
the angels, their blessed missions; all the old legendary 
periods, their representative personages. Balanced upon the 
topmost waves of circling eras, each, in turn, exclaimed : 
"It is I, be not afraid ! " Startling the world, founding new 
institutions, they disappeared for still greater, to breathe 
diviner utterances, prophesy of rosier Junes, riper harvests ; 
and bring to a thirsting people fresher draughts from the 
ever-flowing fountains of inspiration. 

Among the eminent leaders that arose under Asian skies, 
was Joshua — He was so called by his friends and Hebrew coun- 
trymen, signifying savior. The Syrian world expected some 
remarkable leader. " Coming events cast their shadows 
before." This thought impregnated the national atmos- 
phere. It was truly a propitious period. There was weeping 
by Babylon's streams ; a suspense of spiritual life ; a literal 
reign of ritualism in Judea. The Pharisees corresponded to 
New England Puritans, being the most prominent of the 
Jewish sects. In Hillel, disciple of Shammai, and other 
grave Rabbins, they had interpreters of the law; but the 
masses and more advanced thinkers of the times, demanded 
an exposition of the soul ; its forces, sympathies, capacities 
and infinite possibilities. Demand brings supply. When , 
India, China, Greece, called, there were born to them, 
saviors — Chrishna, Confucius, Pythagoras. 

The coming of these religious chieftains, as with Jesus, 
was foretold in dreams and prophecies ; foretold, because the 
thought concerning them, and their mediatorial mission on 
earth, were born and shaped in the Angel Congresses of 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — FORESHADOWING. 79 

supernal worlds. The world of spirits is the world of eauses; 
this, of shadows and effects. All broad humanitarian plans, 
for redemptive purposes, are first conceived in the higher 
realms of spiritual existence; then inflowed by the natural 
law of influx to the sensitive of earth, to take form, be enun- 
ciated, and ultimately outworked into practical life. Ascended 
Hebrew prophets, Persian magi, and other sages of the Orient, 
long in the heavens, planned the birth of a more spiritual, 
organism — a better tyne of Shemitic manhood, to lift the 
Jewish nation out of its chronic clannishness and dwarfing 
formalisms, into the diviner regions of absolute religion — 
that perpetual gospel destined finally to bless all nations. 

Law is infinite. All conceptions, births, deaths, are 
governed by fixed and established laws; therefore, natural. 
Mary was susceptible to spirit influence. Immortals knowing 
it, and seeing her to be a future mother, overshadowed her 
with their piercing, moulding magnetism. To this end the 
angel Gabriel, through the mediumistic Evangelist, Luke, 
said to her : "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the 
power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." Jesus there- 
fore was precocious and loving ; impressional and clair- 
voyant ; a mortal brother of the immortal gods and goddesses 
who helped fashion him mentally, that he, inspired by them, 
and- a "legion of angels," might aid in fashioning future 
ages. 

Speaking the Syriac dialect, mixed with, if not mostly 
Hebrew, his better words, dropping like gems from crowns, 
were gilt-edged, and alive with the logic of love and 
intuition. His life so rich and suggestive to a spiritual phi- 
losopher, so vague and mystical to an external matter-of-fact 
Jew, was a blended Odyssey and tragedy, with legions of 
inspiring powers behind the scenes. On Calvary he died a 
martyr! His principles live forever; while he, a perpetual 
inspiration to this planet, mediatorially preaches universal 
love as a redemptive power in all worlds. 



Chapter xi. 



MYTHIC. 



"Men groped to find the wrecks of primal matter, 
And wasted long years in putting bone to bone ; 

Babel revives where the world's gossips clatter, 
And fossil words adjust to fossil stone. 

O'er fossil homilies the churches nod 

Stone heart, stone service, and a stony God ! " 

Thinkers of the living present will necessarily study the 
man of Nazareth from three planes of thought : 

I. The historic Jesus, copied from the Chrishna of India : 

II. The theologic Jesus, a church monster of the " Christian 
Fathers :" 

III. The natural Jesus, an enthusiastic Spiritualist of 
Judea. 

Naturally worshipful, all nations have had their Jehovahs, 
Christmas, Christs, Bibles, and priests to expound them. The 
oldest of these are traceable to India. Under tropical skies 
there summered the most ancient civilizations.. They had 
their arts, sciences, ethics, poets, authors, the literature of 
which, has streamed in such unbroken channels down the 
intermediate ages, as to overwhelm with astonishment the 
first scholars of Europe. 

Sir William Jones said their "Literature seemed absolutely 
inexhaustible, reminding him of infinity itself." Johnson 
wrote : " The Iliad of Homer numbers twenty-four thousand 
verses; but the Mahabharata of the Hindoos four hundred 
thousand; and the Puranas comprehending only a small 

80 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — MYTHIC. 81 

portion of their religious books, extend to two millions of 
verses. Among the more valued of their religious works, is 
the Bhagavat-Gita, C Krishna's revelation. This is termed by 
a classical German scholar : " A magnificent Thespesian 
poem, abounding in metaphysics, ethics, and sublime religious 
doctrines." The same author classes Jesus among the "first 
of the Judean poets." Considered as prose or poetry, it has 
richer veins of thought than the book of Job, and bears 
certain oriental relations to the gospel of John. 

The Bhagavat-Purana, the 18th of the Puranas, is devoted 
to the history of Chrishna.* Some of the Upanishads dwell 
largely upon the beauty and purity of his life. He was the 
eighth Avater of. Vishnu, the first person in the adorable 
" Trinity " of that portion of the Hindoos occupying the 
more central parts of India. This divine descent, according 
to the best authority, took place in the beginning of the Kali- 
Yuga, or " counted age" — an " age of vice and iron," about 
four thousand years since ; and was for the purpose of 
redeeming humanity. Vishnu, thus descending, took upon 
himself human form, becoming Chrishna incarnate — " God 
manifest in the flesh." It is the same as the " verbum 
caro factum est" — the word made flesh — of St John, who, 
towards the close of an eventful life, became acquainted, in 
consequence of his scholarship and high spiritual culture, 
with the doctrines of the Eastern Magi, a class of philoso- 
phers called Gnostics. These Gnostics had derived most of 
their teachings from the "mysteries" of the Gymnosophists 
of India. 

The close and almost perfect parallelism between the 
Chrishna of the Bhao-avat-Gita, and the Christ of the 



*Sir Wm. Jones invariably spells the name of this celebrated person, 
Chrishna; Dr. Weisse, a distinguished German writer, Christna. Orthodox 
clergy, anxious to make Jesus a purely original character, without the least 
authority, spell the name differently. An eminent English Divine says: "The 
churches meanly and pitifully alter the spelling of the name from the original 
orthography, (Chrishna) which rests on the high authority of Sir Wm. Jones, 
invariably priut it as Krishna, or Kreeshna, to screen the resemblance of the 
name to Christ from the eye's observance." 

6 



82 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Gospels, is of itself sufficient evidence to show that one was 
borrowed from the other ; or that they were both copies 
from some older myth. 

Chrishna is always represented as a savior, the same as 
Jesus Christ. Considered originally, the Supreme God, he 
condescended to descend and take upon himself the sinful 
state of humanity, as Christ is said to have done, by 
orthodox theologians. Of royal origin, he was born in a 
lowly condition. Immediately after the birth of Chrishna, 
he was saluted by divine songs from the Devatas — angels — 
as was the Nazarene. Surrounded by shepherds, thoroughly 
impressed with his greatness, he was visited by the Magi, 
wise men, among whom was an Indian prophet, called Nared, 
who, hearing of his fame, examined the stars, and declared 
him of celestial descent. His parents "Nanda," the father, 
and " Deva Maia" the divine mother, were compelled to flee 
by night into a remote country, for fear of a tyrant who had 
ordered all the male children of those regions to be slain. 
This story, says the eminent Godfrey Higgins, (Anac. b. iv. 
s. ii.) " Is the subject of an immense sculpture in the cave at 
Elephanta, ***** * where the 

suspicious tyrant is represented destroying the children." 
The date of this sculpture, Higgins further says : " is lost in 
the most remote antiquity." 

Chrishna was sent to a tutor to be instructed; and 
instantly astonished him by his profound wisdom, as did 
Christ, the Jewish doctors, in the temple. Chrishna is called 
Heri, and Heri, in Sanscrit, means shepherd, as well as savior. 
Christ was termed the "shepherd of the sheep. Chrishna 
had a forerunner in his elder brother, Horn., as had Jesus in 
his cousin, John the Baptist. Rom assisted Chrishna, the 
" Good Shepherd," in purifying the world from the pollution 
of evil demons. To show deep humility, Chrishna washed 
the feet of the Brahmins ; so did Jesus the disciples. Upon 
one occasion a woman poured on Chrishna's head a box of 
ointment, for which he cured her of an ailment. Matthew's 
gospel assures us that a woman anointed the head of Jesus 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — MYTHIC. 83 

in a similar manner. One of Chrishna's first miracles, was 
the cure of a leper. It was also among the first of Christ's. 
During the succeeding career of Chrishna, he taught inspi- 
rational truths, raised the dead, was crucified, descended into 
Hades — the under world of spirits — whence he returned, and 
ascended to Vaicontha, Heaven, or the proper Paradise of 
Vishnu, who is the Father, or first person of the Hindoo 
Trinity. 

There are further similarities in the lives of Chrishna and 
Christ. Chrishna had a favorite disciple — Arjuna — the third 
son of Pandu, corresponding to the " disciple that Jesus 
loved." The first section of the Bhagavat-Gita, is devoted 
to the grief of the loved Arjuna. The church historians, 
Eusehius and Athanasius, state, that, when Joseph and Mary 
arrived in Egypt, they took up their abode in Thebais — in 
which was a superb temple of Serapis. Entering the 
temple, miracles were wrought The full account is recorded 
in the Evangelium Infantise. 

The Rev. Mr. Maurice acknowledges that " The Arabic 
edition of the gospel of the infancy of Jesus, mentions 
Matarea as the place where the infant savior resided during 
his absence from Juclea,' until the death of Herod. Chrishna 
was born at Mathura. The Evangelium Infantise mentions 
the place where Jesus was born, as filled with light surpass- 
ing that of the noonday sun. The moment Chrishna was 
born the whole room became splendidly illuminated, and 
the heads of the father and mother were surrounded with 
rays of glory. These similarities are so striking, that none 
can fail of perceiving why the " Gospel of the Infancy of 
Jesus " was voted non-canonical by a council of Christian 
Bishops. The book was considered inspired, however, by 
many of the church fathers, and was highly esteemed by 
St. Irenseus, Bishop of Lyons, who suffered martyrdom, 
A. D. 202. 

Chrishna of India, and Christ of Judea, both born in Asia, 
were so literally identical in general character, as well as in 
the minor events and circumstances of their lives, that none 



84 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

can deny their close historic connexion. Which, then, the 
original ? which the copy f 

The Bhagavat-Gita, one of the most sacred of the Puranas, 
contains an account of Chrishna's life — the Gospels of 
Christ's life. Both were announced as saviors. Which was, 
therefore, first, the Bhagavat-Gita, or the New Testament? 
"With profound oriental scholars there can be little, perhaps 
no difference of opinion. 

The sacred Hindoo book — the Bhagavat-Gita — lays claim 
to nearly the highest antiquity of any of the Brahminical 
compositions. That very competent judge, Rev. Mr. Mau- 
rice admits there is ample proof to show its existence full four 
thousand years since. Sir Wm. Jones, whose orthodoxy was 
never questioned, affirms that the name of Chrishna, and the 
general outline of his history, were long anterior to the birth 
of our Saviour, and probably to the time of Homer, we 
know very certainly.'" This is authority from an unwilling 
witness. 

The celebrated English scholar, Godfrey Higgins, says, 
(Anac. b. iv. c. i. p. 129,): " The sculptures on the walls of, 
the most ancient temples — temples by no one ever doubted 
to be long anterior to the Christian' Era — as well as written 
works equally old, prove,, beyond a possibility of doubt, the 
superior antiquity of the history of Chrishna to that of 
Jesus." 

Dr. Prichard admits, (Anal. Egypt. Mythol. p.261,) " That 
the history of Chrishna is to be found in all the caves ot 
Ellora, Elephanta and others known to be the oldest." 

The learned Baldseus observes, (Pref. Uni. Hist. p. 13,) 
that every " part of the life of Chrishna has a near resemb- 
lance to the history of Christ; and that the time when 
Chrishna's miracles were performed, was during the Duap- 
parajug, which ended thirty-one hundred years before the 
Christian Era." 

In consonance with the above, the Cantab declares : " If 
there's meaning in words, this Christian Missionary admits, 
(according to Higgins,) that the history of Christ is founded 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — MYTHIC. 85 

on that of Chrishna." This author further declares, (Anac. 
b. x. c. ii. p. 593,) " That even the most blind and credulous 
of devotees must allow that we have the existence of the 
Chrishna of the Brahmins in Thrace, many hundred years 
before the birth of Jesus Christ." 

Justin assures us, " that the Erythrsen Sybil, which 
foretold the things that should happen to Jesus Christ, also 
told that, in a neighboring country, between the Indus and 
Granges, there was a person, Chrishna, long before Christ's 
time, to whom were ascribed nearly all the things that were 
ascribed to Jesus Christ." It is further demonstrated upon 
the authority of a " passage of Adrian, that the worship of 
Chrishna was practiced in the time of Alexander the Great, 
(330 B. C.) in the Temple of Mathura, one of the most 
famous of India." These testimonies settle the matter of 
time. 

Maurice, in his elaborate work, frankly confesses that the 
Evangelists must have copied from the Bhagavat-Gita and 
other Puranas ; or the Brahmins from the Evangelists. But 
we have shown from the most incontestable sources, that the 
sacred Bhagavat-Gita antedated the time of Christ by at 
least a thousand, and far more probably, two thousand years ; 
and that the celebrated Chrishna lived and wrought his 
marvelous miracles long before the appearance of the 
Nazarene. 

The educated protestant divines of France, and the more 
erudite of the German theologians, admit the astonishing 
similarity in the Asiatic saviors, Chrishna and Christ. This, 
in a good measure, accounts for the prevalence of German 
Rationalism. The American clergy, with few exceptions, 
narrow, conceited and sectarian, prefer reveling in blissful 
ignorance relative to the antiquity of India, China, Egypt, 
and the saviors and sacred books of Asia, from which ours 
have been borrowed, or clandestinely purloined. 

From travel, and profound antiquarian research, Rev. Mr. 
Maurice confesses that the principal incidents in the narrated 
life of Jesus Christ — the birth at midnight, the chorus of 



86 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

angels, the cradling among shepherds, the child's conceal- 
ment in a foreign country, from fear of a tyrant; the early 
wisdom manifest, the curing of the leper, the raisings of the 
dead, etc., are paralleled in Chrishna — all paralleled in the 
prior life of Chrishna, except the "immaculate conception." 

This vacuum is readily supplied in the history of Pythag- 
oras, born nearly six centuries before Jesus, on the Isle of 
Sarnos. Of him Jamblichus writes : " No one can doubt that 
the soul of Pythagoras was sent to mankind from the empire 
of God, * * * being an attendant on the god, Apollo; 
or co-arranged with him in some other way." 

It was the custom of the earlj Church Fathers to travel for 
information. This was especially the case with Papias, 
Hegesippus, Justin and others. These, visiting the most 
enlightened portions of the East, mingled the teachings 
there found, concerning Pythagoras, with those relating to 
the Indian Chrishna, and from the " supernatural " connected 
with the two, they constructed the mythologic portions of 
the gospel histories. 

When young, Pythagoras went to Tyre and Sidon, to be 
schooled in their learning. Then he journeyed to Egpyt, to 
be taught in the wisdom of her priests and seers, as did 
Jesus, according to the testimony of Athanasias and the 
scholarly M. Denon. After this Pythagoras was borne to Bab- 
ylon by Cambyses, the restorer of the Jewish temple and 
religion, and initiated into the divine mysteries of the 
Persian Magi ; and finally, he traveled into India, where he 
became acquainted with the ethics and occult sciences of the 
Brahmins. It is not only natural, but very evident that this 
inspired Samian derived many of his metaphysical doctrines 
from the Gymnosophic school of philosophy. From exten- 
sive travel, this commingling could hardly be avoided. 

The method of Pythagoras' conception is equally as mirac- 
ulous as that ascribed to Jesus. They are, in fact, identical. 
In the writings of Jamblichus, who quotes, for authorities, 
Epimenides, Xenocrates and Olimpiodorus, all living long 
prior to the birth of Christ, may be found a full account of 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — MYTHTC. 87 

the immaculate conception and birth of Pythagoras. That 
truly learned and candid scholar, Godfrey Higgins, writes 
(Anac. c. iv. p. 150,) : 

" The first striking circumstance in which the history of Pythagoras 
agrees with the history of Jesus, is, that they were natives nearly of 
the same country ; the former being born at Sidon, the latter at Beth- 
lehem, both in Syria. The father of Pythagoras, as well as the father 
of Jesus, was prophetically informed that his wife should bring forth a 
son, who should be a benefactor to mankind. They were both born 
when their mothers were from home on journeys; Joseph and his wife 
having gone up to Bethlehem to be taxed, and the father of Pythag- 
oras having traveled from Samos, his residence, to Sidon, about his 
mercantile concerns. Pythias, the mother of Pythagoras, had a 
connexion with an Apolloniacal specter, or ghost, of the god Apollo, 
which afterward appeared to her husband, and told him that he must 
have no connexion with his wife during her pregnancy — a story 
evidently the same as that relating to Joseph and Mary. From these 
peculiar circumstances, Pythagoras was known by the same identical 
title as Jesus, namely, the Son of God, and was supposed by the 
multitude to be under the influence of divine inspiration. 

" When young, he was of a very grave deportment, and was cele- 
brated for his philosophical appearance and wisdom. He wore his hair 
long, after the manner of the Nazarites, whence he was called the 
long-haired Samian." 

Jamblichus himself says : " The Pythian oracle foretold 
to Mnesarchus, the father of Pythagoras, that his wife would 
bring forth a son, surpassing in beauty and wisdom all that 
ever lived, and who would be of the greatest advantage to 
the human race, in everything pertaining to the life of man. 
The infant, upon coming into existence, was called Pythag- 
oras; signifying by this appellation that such an offspring 
was predicted to him by the Pythian Apollo. 

Pythagoras professed to visit the spiritual world, and hokl 
converse with departed spirits, and described the condition 
of Homer, Hesiod and others there. His pure, holy and 
divinely wonderful life, makes it impossible to doubt his 
sincerity. It was said of him, that he " knew every thing, 
and was right in every thing." It was asserted by many 
that he was " the Son of God." 

- Underlying all mythoses are pearls of wisdom and sprink- 
lings of truth. The crucified reformers of to-day become 



88 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

the gods of to-morrow. This applies to the Nazarene. 
From the lives of Chrishna and Pythagoras, were gathered 
and woven the principal events connected with the historic 
Jesus of the Evangelists. He is a copy of prior saviors. 
This was the work of the Church Fathers of the first 
centuries, and in perfect keeping with their general char- 
acter ! Ambrose, Augustine, St. Jerome, and others, were 
corrupted with the villainous idea, that " it was right to lie 
for the sake of religion." Mosheim tells us (Vol. i. p. 130,) 
the doctrine, " that it was not only lawful, but commendable 
to deceive and lie for the sake of truth and piety, early 
spread among the Christians of the second century ! " This 
church historian further admits (Vol. i. p. 155,) " that pious 
frauds and impositions were among the causes of the extension 
of Christianity! " 



Lhaptef^ XII. 



THEOLOGIC. 



"The ages sweep around him with their wings, 
Like angered eagles cheated of their prey." 

"One rosy drop from Jesus' heart 
Was worlds of seas to quench God's ire." 

The accepted " Savior " of Christian nations to-day, is the 
theologic Christ; a strange Hebraic hybrid; half God, half 
man — a church monster, shapen by the old ecclesiastic 
Fathers and Roman Bishops, from the most worthless 
portion of the cast-off drippings of Pagan traditions. 

There is no prophecy of this Christ of the church in the 
Old Testament Scriptures. Saying nothing of the writings 
of Colenso, that so completely undermine the Pentateuch, 
nor of those deep thinking German divines that have shaken 
the canonical-voted books of the Old Testament to their very 
foundations, we merely refer to some eminent English divines. 
Dr. Ekerman and Dr. Geo. S. Clark clearly show that the 
Old Testament contains no prophecy relating to the person, 
Jesus Christ. (Class. Jour, vol, xxxiii. p. 47.) Dr. Adam 
Clark, the annotater of the Bible, contends that the prophecy 
of Isaiah — u A Virgin shall conceive and bear a son," and " call 
his name Immanuel," does not mean Christ; but Isaiah's own 
son I " Dr. Clark further observes : 

" It is humbly apprehended that the young woman usually called the 
virgin is the same with the prophetess, and Immanuel is to be named 

89 



90 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

by his mother, the same with the prophet's son, whom he was ordered 
to name Maher-shalal-hash-baz." (Class. Jour. vol. i. p. 637.) 

That there were general and dimly defined prophecies 
enunciated by the more mediumistic of the Hebrew seers, 
relating to coming saviors, and looking to the future spir- 
itual illumination of their nation, is evidently true. 

The Arian controversy concerning the derivation and 
deity of Christ, commencing early in the fourth century, 
between Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and Arius, one 
of his presbyters, finally terminated by the Bishop's assert- 
ing: "That the Son was not only of the same eminence 
and dignity, but also of the same essence with the Father." 
(Mosh. vol. i.) Accordingly, we have, in the Athanasian 
creed, received by all evangelical Christians, this, concerning 
Jesus Christ : 

"The Son is of the Father alone, not created, but begotten. 

" The God-head of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 
is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. * * * 

" Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy 
Ghost. 

" The Father is Almighty, the Son is Almighty, and the Holy Ghost 
Almighty. 

" And yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. * * 

" He, therefore, that would be saved, must thus think of the 
Trinity." 

After God had made the world in " six days," and Adam 
from the " dust of the ground," he placed him in a garden, 
and causing a "deep sleep" to fall upon him, "took one of 
his ribs and made he a woman.'''' The Bible says it. This 
woman "frail," and conversing with, was tempted by the 
" serpent," which serpent, the Methodist, Dr. Adam Clarke, 
thinks was an ape, or an orang-outang ! (Com. vol. i. c. 
iii. p. 47.) 

Eve yielding to the temptation, and finding the fruit 
pleasant, "gave to Adam." They fell! And being the 
federal heads of the race, falling, they involved all their 
unborn posterity, even universal humanity, subjecting it to 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — THEOLGIC. 91 

the "miseries of this life, death itself, and the pains of Hell 
forever." So affirms the creed. 

It was a fearful crisis. God was exceedingly angry at 
Adam and Eve for doing just what he knew they would do. 
The sword of divine justice was raised. The Throne was 
in danger ! 

"'Twas a seat of dreadful wrath, 



And shot devouring flame ; 

Our God appeared consuming fire, 

And vengeance was his name." 

Deific justice had been wronged. Atonement must be 
made. The threatened penalty must be inflicted upon the 
race of man, or some substitute. A "plan" is devised. 
God, the Son, equal with the Father, stepping in between 
an offended God and offending man, says : " Spare the 
guilty race of humanity ! open a way ! glut thy vengeance 
upon me! I will take upon myself the penalty ! I will die a 
substitute!" God the Father hears — relents. God the Son, 
corresponding to incarnations of India, shapes himself in 
human form; is born of the Virgin Mary; suffers under 
Pontius Pilot — "dead and buried." Watts versifies the 
Christian idea thus : 

"Well might the sun in darkness hide, 
And shut his glories in, 
When Christ, the mighty Maker, died 
For man, the creature's sin." 

Mark the phrase — the "mighty Maker died" — a dead 
God! dying for the purpose of permitting rebellious sinners 
to go unpunished, to escape the penalty of the law, providing 
they believe in this " divine mystery" — the atonement. After 
this sacrificial death of an innocent Son, opening the way for 
the guilty to escape the demands of justice, God the Father 
becomes reconciled — pleased. Watts sings it : 

"Rich were the drops of Jesus' blood 
That calmed his frowning face, 
That sprinkled o'er the burning throne, 
And turned his wrath to grace." 



92 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 
" He quenched 



His Father's flaming sword 
In his own vital blood." 

Another Christian poet says : 

"With one tremendous draught of blood, 
He drank damnation dry ! " 

This prevailing theologic dogma of the atonement, with a 
mythologic Jesus as principal actor, is termed the " plan of 
salvation ! " 

Salvation, in its more philosophic sense, is soul-growth — 
divine unfoldment from the innermost outward, and a 
strictly personal matter. My savior is the Christ principle. 
It was born with me — is in me — is me. It was before the 
wandering Galilean ; before Abraham ; before astral worlds 
commenced their stately march through the siderial 
heavens — pre-existent — eternal ! Neither the merits of 
Buddha, Chrishna, nor Christ Jesus, are transferable, like 
bundles of merchandise. Self-salvation, self-sanctification, 
were the doctrines taught by that eminent Judean Spirit- 
ualist, Jesus. Said he — "I testify of myself." Again — " / 
sanctify myself.''' Sound and sensible ! The " grace of God " 
is as powerless to save souls, as the grace of colleges to make 
scholars, independent of earnest effort. " Work out your 
own salvation," is among the best of the Pauline writings. 
Personal character, not the sacrificial blood of goats and kids 
under the law, not Christ's under the gospel, decide 
individual destiny. 

Jesus' merits saved him, none else. Your merits must 
save you. Each soul is a manger, cradling a savior — God in 
man. The blood of one cannot atone for the sins of another. 
That hemlock draught poisoned only Socrates. Jesus' 
prayer in the garden brought angels to him, not us. God is 
just. Compensation is an inflexible law. Justice is sweet 
as mercy: both, centering in, flow out from an infinite 
ocean of love. Happiness comes not by imputed, but by 
personal righteousness ; that is, right doing. Only by being 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — THEOLOGIC. 93 

good, can there be good results. Only in a heavenly state 
of mind can heaven come to any soul. "What wilt thou 
have, quoth God — pay for it, and take it," writes Emerson. 
Over the shining portals that open into the city Celestial, are 
inscribed — " No forgiveness ! — merit entitles to admission! — love 
is life ! — harmony is heaven I " 



Chapter xiii. 



THE NAZARENE. 



"The ' Twelve ' in awful circle stand 
Where mortal dare not enter ; 
And, blazing like a solar world 
Stands Jesus in the center." 

I testify of myself. — Jesus. 

Entombed among myths, and buried under the film that 
flecks the synoptic gospels, there shines a life, gentle, beau- 
tiful, divine. The mythologic and theologic savior, copied 
from Chrishna, of India, aside, then, we come to Jesus the 
Spiritualist — Jesus the natural man, the expected Son of 
Syria, child of love and wisdom — our ancient brother. 

An impassioned theatre-admiring mother gave to England 
a Byron, who shocked the State Church with his bold, 
passional thought, and called down angels to hear his strong, 
loving heart beat in poetry that will live when his persecutors 
are unknown, save as "pigmies on Alps." A mother, 
ambitious and daring, rode a dashing steed upon smoking 
battle-fields in southern Italy; and Napoleon's sw r ord caused 
Europe to tremble. Mary was calm, loving, aspiration al, 
spiritual. Overshadowed by heavenly influences, and other 
beautiful and ante-natal conditions, the civilized world throbs 
in responsive sympathy to the moral power of Jesus of 
Nazareth. Whether Joseph, or a priest of the temple, 
sustained the masculine relation to the welcome Nazarene, 

94 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — THE NAZARENE. 95 

matters not, so far as the present exegesis is concerned. 
Suffice it, that he was the natural offspring of human 
parents ; the begotten of love and harmony, under the sweet 
baptismal magnetisms of angels; all conducing to an impres- 
sional, inspirational, harmonial organism — a medium — harp 
admirably fitted for the play of divine powers. 

In the gorgeous East, amid the mellow sunbeams, sifted 
from Syrian skies, Jesus awoke to the outer consciousness 
of earth-life. 

"Galilee," writes Renan, "is a country very green; dense with 
masses of flowers ; full of shade and pleasantness ; the true country of 
the canticle of canticles, and of the songs of the well-beloved. * * * 
In no place in the world do the mountains spread out with more har- 
mony, or inspire loftier ideas. Jesus seems to have loved them 
especially. The most important acts of his divine career were per- 
formed upon the mountains ; there he was best inspired ; there he had 
secret conferences with the ancient prophets, and showed himself to his 
disciples already transfigured. * * * As often happens in very 
lofty natures, tenderness of heart was in him transformed into infinite 
sweetness, vague poetry, universal charm. * * * The group that 
pressed around him upon the banks of the Lake of Tiberias, * * * 
believed in spectres and in spirits. * * * Great spiritual manifes- 
tations were frequent. All believed themselves to be inspired in 
different ways. Some were ' prophets/ others ' teachers.' " (Life of 
Jesus, p. 210.) 

Education has much to do in fashioning character. "Where 
was Jesus between the years of twelve and thirty ? In what 
school of ideas was he educated ? To these inquiries the 
New Testament gives not the least clue. Those scheming 
superstitious Bishops, that collected the scattered manu- 
scripts, often guilty of conduct that would have lastingly 
disgraced the frailest of the Alexandrian Platonists, voted 
gospels in and out of the canon, ad libitum. (Ecumenical 
councils debated and decided by majorities upon the compar- 
ative merits of some thirty or forty gospels, each claiming 
by interested parties, divine origin. Among them wer3 the 
gospel of St. Peter, of St. Andrew, of St. Barnabus; the 
gospel of the infancy of Jesus, &c. They rejected all, 



96 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

save Matthew. Mark, Luke and John. The general char- 
acter of the Christian Bishops composing these councils, is 
described thus by Dr. Jortin (Bucks. Theol. Die. p. 99). 
"They have been too much extolled by Papists, and by some 
Protestants. They were a collection of men who were frail 
and fallible. Some of those councils were not assemblies of 
pious and learned divines, but cabals, the majority of which 
were quarrelsome, fanatical, domineering, dishonest prelates, 
who wanted to compel men to approve all their opinions, of 
which they themselves had no clear conceptions; and to 
anathamatize and oppress those who would not implicitly 
submit to their determinations." Upon the authority of this 
scholar and Christian theologian, with the testimony of 
many others, in confirmation, at our disposal, it is clear 
that the New Testament books have reached us through 
"fanatical," "quarrelsome" and "dishonest prelates." So 
"dishonest," that they voted every thing un-canonical that 
related to Jesus' sojourn in Egypt, and initiation into the 
Essenian brotherhood. 

Fortunately, however, a few of the more honest of the 
Church Fathers, with certain Pythagoric and Platonic 
authors, whose integrity stands unquestioned, have left suffi- 
cient historic data to establish the theory of Jesus' travels in 
Egypt, and deep schooling in the "mysteries" pertaining to 
India, China and Greece. 

M. Denon, describing a very beautiful temple of the 
ancient Egyptians at Philoe, says : "I found within it some 
remains of a domestic scene, which seemed that of Joseph 
and Mary, and it suggested to me the subject of the flight 
into Egypt, in a style of the utmost truth and interest. 
(Eng. Trs. by A. Aiken, vol. ii. p. 169.) 

Both Athanasius and Eusebius state that when Joseph 
and Mary arrived in Egypt, they took up their residence in 
a city in which was a splendid temple of Serapis. (Eusb. 
Demon. Ev. Lib. vi. ch. 20.) 

The candid Rev. Mr. Maurice assures us that, " The Arabic edition 
of the Evangelium Infantiae records Maturea, near Hermopolis, in 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — THE NAZARENE. 97 

Egypt, to have been the place where Jesus resided during his absence 
from the land of Judea, until the death of Herod." (Maur. Hist. vol. 
ii. p. 318.) 

" In the Maturea (or Matarea) of Egypt, Jesus Christ is said, as we 
have before shown, to have spent his youth, after he took refuge there, 
from the tyrant Herod." (Anac. vol. i. p. 242.) 

Pythagoras, according to Jamblichus, spent twenty-two 
years in Egypt, among those savans and templed priests. 
Whether Jesus remained there all the years till the aston- 
ishing of the "doctors of the law;" or all the time from 
twelve to thirty years of age, we have no means of knowing 
positively. It is more probable that, like other illustrious 
men of his age, he traveled in search of wisdom. Thales, 
Solon, Democritus, Orpheus, Plato, Theodosius, Epicurus, 
Herodotus, Lycurgus, these great philosophers of antiquity, 
binding their stoutest sandals upon their feet, and taking the 
Pilgrims' staff in their hands, left their country, and went 
forth to visit the vast sanctuaries of Egypt, there to be initiated 
into those mysteries that had been handed down from the 
older, riper civilizations of India. "I am persuaded," writes 
Sir Wm, Jones, "that a connection existed between the old 
nations of India, Egypt, Greece and Italy, long before the 
time of Moses." (Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 259.) 

That Jesus was an Essenian is susceptible of the clearest 
historic demonstration. 

Who were they ? — what their origin, their teachings and 
customs ? 

The Essenians among the Jews, the Magi among the Per- 
sians, the Hierophants of Egypt, and the G-ymnosophists of 
India, were all co-related by a common system of science, 
treasured wisdom and profound mystery ; all one, with such 
variations as periods of time, change of language and 
country, would necessarily produce. Clemens Alexandrinus 
states, upon what he considered the highest authority, that 
Buddha was the founder of the sect of Gymnosophists, the 
Indian philosophers. (The Buddha, of which avatar, however, 
is not specified.) Porphyry, at first a student of Origen and 
7 



98 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Longinus, afterwards a disciple of Plotinus, says : " There 
was one tribe of Indians divinely wise, whom the Greeks were 
accustomed to call Gymnosophists ; but of these there were 
two sects, over one of which, Brahmins presided; over the 
other, the Samangeons." (De Abst. b. iv. Sect. 17.) 

Pythagoras, in India, was a student at the feet of those 
Gjmnosophists. As a senior among the mystics, he there 
graduated. Higgins affirms, that the "school of this great 
philosopher from the East — India, Carmel, Egypt, Delphi, 
Delos — was closely connected with the schools of the Essen- 
ians, Samangeons, Carmelites, and Gnostic Christians. The 
Pythagorians were Essenians; and the Rev. R. Taylor, 
A. M., * * has clearly proved all the hierarchical institu- 
tions of the Christians, to be a close copy of those of the 
Essenians of Egypt." (Anac. b. x. c. vii. p. 787.) 

These Essenians were sometimes denominated physicians of the soul, 
or Theraputae ; and, " residing both in Egypt and Judea, they prob- 
ably spoke, or had their sacred books in Chaldee. They were Pyth- 
agorians to all intents and purposes, as is proven by their forms, 
ceremonies and doctrines. * * If the Pythagorians, or Ccenobitae, 
as they are called by that famous Neo-Platonian philosopher, Jamb- 
lichus, were Buddhists, then the Essenians were originally Buddhists. 
A branch of these Essenians, termed, Koinobii, lived in Egypt, on the 
shores of lake Parembole, in Monasteries." (Anac. b. x. c. vii.) 

These quotations show the intimate relations, if not direct 
identity of the Gymnosophists, Yogees, Hierophants, Pyth- 
agoreans, Essenians, Magi, Sufis and Rashees. Of these 
latter, Ayeen Akberry, writes : " The most respectable people 
in this country are the Rashees, who, although they do not 
suffer themselves to be fettered by traditions, are, doubtless, 
true worshipers of God. They revile not any other sect, 
and ask nothing of any one ; they plant the road with fruit 
trees, to furnish the traveler with refreshments. They 
abstain from flesh, and have no intercourse with the other 
sex." There are nearly two thousand of this sect in 
Cashmeer. Higgins adds : " These Reyshees, or Rashees, 
same as Sofees, are the Essenians, Carmelites, or Nazarites 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM THE NAZARENE. 99 

of the temple." Quoting a passage from the learned and 
eminent Burnet, in confirmation, he further says: "I was 
not a little gratified to find that the close relation between 
the Hindoos and the more respectable of all the Jewish sects, 
the Essenians, of which I have not the slightest doubt that 
Jesus Christ was a member, had been observed by this very 
learned man, almost a hundred years ago, before the late 
blaze of light from the East had shoue upon us." (Anac. 
vol. ii. b. ii. p. 50.) 

Old India, the mother of civilizations, colonizing Egypt, 
necessarily bore her sacred mysteries there. Egypt, cele- 
brating them in her pyramidal chambers, transferred them, in 
a somewhat modified form, to Persia and Greece, and, 
through Moses, to the more intellectual of the Jewish 
people; these, joining by initiation, were called Theraputse, 
and Essenes. 

Father Heboid says : " This religious and philosophic sect, the 
Essenians, of which Jesus Christ was a member; was composed of 
learned Jews, who lived in the form of a society similar to that of 
Pythagoras. If not the same, in substance, they were intimately con- 
nected with another sect, called Theraputes, residing in Egpyt, forming 
the fraternal link between the Egyptians and the Hebrews. * * * 
That occult science, designated by the ancient priests, under the name 
of regenerating fire, is that which, at the present day, is known as 
animal magnetism — a science that, for more than three thousand years, 
was the peculiar possession of the Indian and Egyptian priesthood, into 
the knowledge of which Moses was initiated at Heliopolis, where he 
was educated ; and Jesus among the Essenian priests of Egypt or 
Judea ; and by which these two great reformers, particularly the latter, 
wrought many of the miracles mentioned in the Scriptures." 

It being evident, then, that Jesus, spending his youth in 
Egypt, perhaps traveling in other Asiatic countries than 
Palestine, was connected with the Essenians, the question of 
their teachings and practices becomes deeply interesting. 

Philo, of Alexandria, in two books, written expressly 
upon the subject of the Essenes, giving a close and critical 
account of their doctrines and manners, says: " Listening to 
the instructions of their chiefs, they were taught, as were the 



100 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Py thagorians, the existence of one supreme God, the immor- 
tality of the soul, rewards and punishments for good and ill- 
doing, and the guardian care of gods and angels. It was 
enjoined upon them to show obedience to authority; fidelity 
to all men; to be lovers of truth; exercising kindness to 
inferiors; concealing nothing from their own sect; nor 
discovering any of their doctrines to others than those who 
had received them with the white stone and the new name; 
and lastly, to preserve the books belonging to the sect, and 
the names of the angels." 

At the time of the Maccabees, 180 B. C, on the western 
coast of the Dead Sea, the Essenians made the doctrine of 
community of goods, and a life in common, a religious and 
social dogma. Lodged under the same roof, taking meals at 
the same table, clothed in the same dress, ignoring marriage, 
they observed celibacy and lived in continence, abjured 
oaths and all violence, contemned riches, rejected the use 
of the precious metals, were given wholly to the meditation 
of moral and religious truths, and subsisted by the labor of 
their hands, were content with one meal a day, and that of 
bread and vegetables and fruits. 

Philo further informs us, that, " spreading themselves all 
through Asia Minor, and in the environs of Alexandria, they 
became, at a later period, more devoted; renouncing all 
pleasure, ambition, glory, earthly possessions, and their 
native country, even, to give themselves entirely to the 
exercise of prayer, contemplation and deeds of charity." To 
.overcome the passions, the spiritual controlling the Adamic, 
to subjugate the senses, to raise the soul above the influences 
of the body, to despise the sham of fame and glitter of 
wealth, to commune with the gods and orders of celestial 
beings — these, in the estimation of the Essenians, constituted 
the ideal of human perfection. Who does not see in it 
the underlying animus that, from the earthly side, inspired 
the consecration and catholicity of spirit which so eminently 
distinguished the reformer of Nazareth? 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM THE NAZARENE. 101 

Jesus being interiorly sweet and harmonial in organization, 
fellowshiped by the Essenians, schooled in the Asian mys- 
teries, and a medium, how natural the explanation of the 
genuine teachings, doctrines and wonderful works ascribed 
to him ! Testifying of himself, living the inner life, and 
speaking from the divine ideal, he rose so high above country 
and national narrowness, he astonished both scribe and phar- 
isee. The old prophets were essentially Israelitish; many 
of the ancient philosophers were decidedly Grecian; the 
sage, Gotama Buddha, was Hindoo, par excellence ; but this 
Judean Spiritualist, grounded in the absolute religion, bap- 
tized daily from above, attended by a legion of angels, 
directed the. thirsting of his age to a fountain from which all 
diversities of race might drink — to a tree of life with fruitage 
fresh and free for all souls; grasping fundamental truths and 
broad, beautiful ideas, he spoke the deepest intuitions of his 
inmost being. No poet or moralist ever enunciated fresher 
or more charming thoughts, adapted to the masses, or voiced 
a keener, richer dialect of audacious insight, than he, in 
those seemingly effortless speeches of the "good shepherd," 
the "true vine," "the lilies," "the birds," the sun rising 
"on the evil and the good, and the rain falling upon the just 
and the unjust." 

All truth is immortal ; our conceptions of it only are new. 
Jesus taught the world no new truths. 

The immortality of the soul had been taught by the 
ancients, preceding Thales, Zeno, Plato, Anaximenes, Em- 
pedocles Indian seers and Persian Magi taught it long- 
before the birth of the Pauline " man Christ Jesus." 

The universal Fatherhood of God is distinctly taught in the 
Socrates of Zenophon, in the hymn of Cleanthes, and in the 
hymn of Avatus ; quoted by Paul in his appeal to the Athe- 
nians; in Maximus Tyrius and Simplicius; in Manilius, 
Epictetus, Seneca and Cicero. Almost every Greek or 
Roman poet, from Hesiod and Homer down, designates 
Jupiter as the father of gods and men, and draws the infer- 
ence therefrom of his infinite love and universal care. 



102 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Pythagoras is made to say, by the Rev. Dr. Collyer, (Lee. xii. 
p. 499,) " God is neither the object of sense, nor subject to 
passion ; but invisible, only intelligible, and supremely intel- 
ligent. In his body, he is like the light, and, in his soul, he 
resembles truth. He is the universal spirit that pervades 
and diffuseth itself through all nature. All beings receive 
their life from him. There is but one only God, who is not, 
as some are apt to imagine, seated above the world, beyond 
the orb of the universe ; but, being himself A 11 in All, he sees 
all the beings that fill his immensity, the only principle, the 
light of Heaven, the Father of all. He produces everything; 
he orders and disposes everything; he is the reason, the life, 
and the motion of all beings." These doctrines, embodying 
the universal Fatherhood of God, were the teachings of 
Pythagoras, concerning Deity. Jesus only reiterated them 
with a pathos peculiarly his own. 

Originality cannot be ascribed therefore to Jesus. The 
doctrine of the Fatherhood of God, is ancient as the teachings 
of the wise in India, Syria and Greece. 

" May the Father of Heaven, who is the Father of Men, be favorable 
to us." — Rig Veda. 

" Father of gods and men." — Hesiod. 

" Zeus, most great and glorious Father." — Homer. 

" Father and guardian of the human race." — Horace. 

" He, the glorious Parent, tries the good men and prepares him for 
himself." — Seneca. 

" He, who regards the whole universe as his country, feels bound to 
seek the favor of its Father and framer." — Philo. 

" They are children of their Eather who is Heaven. * * * * Every 
nation has its special guardian angels." — Talmud. 

The Alexandrian Philo Judseus, 41 B. C, belonging to an 
illustrious Jewish family, emphatically declared all men 
brothers, by virtue of the inspiration of the Eternal Word. 
Intimately acquainted with the philosophy of India and 
Egypt, the ancient Grecian schools, and the cabalistic doc- 
trines preceding him, his system was a mixture of Chrishna, 
Zoroaster, Plato, abounding in Jewish phrases, and wearing 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — THE NAZARENE. 103 

Hebrew forms as garments. From him the N~azarene bor- 
rowed largely, in the imagery connected with his parables. 
Among Philo's principal doctrines, were the divine Logos, 
the universal brotherhood, pre-existence, the descent of souls, 
and the guardian care of angels. 

The humanitarian spirit of brotherhood pervades the older 
Brahminical theology that once flooded Asia, finding expres- 
sion in the " law of love for all." 

The eloquent Quintilian constantly appealed to the senti- 
ment of brotherly love, as the sweetest in man, and, " as 
uniting all men by the will of the Common Father." 

Cicero frequently affirmed, that men were " created for the 
purpose of mutual help, to love and be loved, and for the 
simple reason, they were men." 

Epictetus, Aurelius, Seneca, and others, taught the 
" common citizenship and brotherhood of men." 

" All men, everywhere, belong to one family." — Diodorus. 

" No man is a stranger to me, provided he be a good man; for we 
have all one and the same nature." — Menander. 

" All men are our friends and fellow-citizens. ****** 
Greeks and barbarians drink from one and the same cup of brotherly 
love." — Zeno. 

" Will you not bear with your brother ? He has his birth from the 
same Jove as thou, is His son, as thou art, born of the same divine 
seed.. * * * Will you enslave those who are your brothers by 
nature, children of Gk>d?" — Epictetus. 

" I am a man, nothing human can I count foreign to me." — Terence. 

Denis, in his learned work on the moral theories and 
teachings of antiquity, shows clearly that the highest moral 
sentiments of humanity, brotherhood and self-sacrifice, 
thread the ethical and religious codes of every cultured age. 
All the wise sayings ascribed by Protestant clergymen to 
Jesus, were said before his time. This they ought to know, 
and, knowing, teach. 

Saissetwell said, that stoicism "anticipated Christ's teach- 
ings, in the recognition, that men are brothers and brothers in 
God." The more honest of the old Church Fathers, concede 
a superiority of scholarship and wisdom to the heathen over the 



104 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

first Christians. Conscious of this, the orthodox Merivale, 
says, that " while the apostles preached the commandment of 
Jesus, that he who loveth God love his brother also, the same 
instinct and sympathy sprang spontaneously, and without a 
sanction but that of nature, in many a (heathen) watcher of 
the wants and miseries of men." 

The "golden rule" belongs to Hillel, as well as to Jesus; 
more to Confucius; Philo, and the son of Sirach, more than 
to the son of Joseph, because they enunciated the thought 
before him. Sir Wm, Jones, writing of the antiquity of 
this precept, says : " Religion has no need of such aids as 
many are willing to give it, by asserting that the wisest men 
of this world were ignorant of the two great doctrines, love 
to God, and love to all humanity. These dogmas run like 
silver threadings through the systems of the most ancient 
nations." 

The golden rule was a common teaching among Chinese, 
Syrian and Grecian philosophers, long before the Christian 
era. 

" That which thou blamest in another, do not thyself to thy 
neighbor." — Tholes. 

" Thou wilt deserve to be honored, if thou doest not thyself what 
thou blamest in others." — Isocrates. 

" Do to no man what thou thyself hatest." — Tobit. 

" Do not to another what thou wouldst not he should do to thee : 
this is the sum of the law." — Hillel. 

" What you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others." — 
Confucius. 

But this golden rule of the Chinese philosopher is put in 
the negative, says the clerical objector. Granted. So are 
the ten commandments of the Old Testament; but are they 
any less commandments ? 

Thus far we have traced, by good authorities, the consec- 
utive relations of religions from one race and country to 
another, showing their mutual helps, their co-relations, their 
upward growth into higher altitudes of thought and use. It 
remains now to analyze the degree of originality that justly 
belongs to the Spiritualism of Jesus. 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM — THE NAZARENE. 105 

Waves of civilization are consecutive; the first is pushed 
forward by its next succeeding, and so over the measureless 
ocean of truth. Circling in all directions, they take shape 
according to the forms of mind into which they flow. 

Human nature is the same in all ages and climes, varying 
only in expression. Nothing good is lost to the world. Like 
geological strata, the religion of one age lies upon and over- 
shelves that of the preceding; the former incorporating the 
latter in new forms and uses. A magnificent tree of life, 
each branch has the nature of all the rest. The Egyptian, 
Chinese and Persian copy from the Indian; and the Hebraic 
and Christian, in turn, from all these. Commercially and 
educationally, then, those of one generation shape those of 
the next, in successive order, from the ancient into the 
mediaeval, and thence into the sub-dividing Protestant, which 
belong to the Catholic, as leaves to the same branch — to 
culminate in the completion of a grand cycle, as they now do, 
in the flower of all religions — a world-wide Spiritualism. 

But another influence molds all these changing materials. 
Developed in the tropics, the religion of India was passional 
and gorgeous. Religion in Greece and Rome — farther 
north — was colder, more select, more intellectual and 
brilliant. On the isothermal line, Palestine lies in higher 
latitude than India or Egypt, but not under the more electric, 
and, therefore, intellectual atmosDhere of southern Europe. 

Primitive Christianity, the positive religion of Palestine, 
is, therefore, not so passional and imposingly gorgeous as that 
of India, nor so philosophic and variegated as the Grecian; 
but is intermediate, sufficiently emotional to attract and 
warm the heart, and sufficiently intellectual to evolve a 
correct philosophy of the soul. Beautiful, therefore, is its 
fruit high on the tree of life, substantial and vital in spiritual 
character. 

In the Nazarene we have this happy blending — a balanced 
summer-sunned man — a tropical heart, sweet, full of love- 
flowers, and tempered to an intellectuality that weaves its 
silvery philosophic filling through the magnetic vesture that 



106 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

clothes our freezing humanity. In this sense is primitive 
Christianity original, the same as can be said of Buddhism, 
Mahommedanism, or any other religion. 

Here shines in again the all-unsealing light of the Spiritual 
Philosophy. The Jews borrowed of India and Egypt, and 
other then enlightened nations, in a closer sense than history 
defines, than the intercourse of commerce can guarantee. 
The work of mediumistic minds is by no means ended with 
their departure from this rudi mental sphere. Taking with 
them their peculiar proclivities of thought, their natural 
characteristics, their purposes to finish what they began here, 
they impress upon the new races they affiliate with, their 
politics, science, religion, thus completing the circle of com- 
munication internationally and spiritually. Hence, even 
with races locked in by seas or mountains, or walls, like old 
China, there is a general resemblance in these particulars, 
which only the philosophy of angel-ministry can fully 
explain. 

In the light then of the Spiritual Philosophy, we are not 
to look exclusively to anterior races for the origin of the 
Hebrew, Christian, or of any other subsequent religion ; for 
it was in the power of ancient spirits, and natural to their 
communicative relationship, to re-construct their religious 
wisdom, to be mainly original to their media. 

Eclectic, then, let us here cull some of the beautiful spirit- 
ualities of our dear brother, the self-denying Son of Man. 

Reading the beatitudes, we feel a sweet throbbing within, 
as if the heart's chords were swept by an angel's breath. 
That one sentence is a life-key that opens to calm sunlight 
the soul of Jesus — " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God." There is a very enchantment in his precepts, 
parables, aptitude of illustration, love of the beautiful, moral 
heroism, tender sympathy for the sorrowing, non-resistance, 
and martyrdom for a principle. The picture which Ren an 
draws of him is truthful and charming: 

" As many of the grand aspects of his character are lost to us by the 
fault of his disciples, it is probable that many of his faults have been 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM THE NAZARENE. 107 

dissembled. But never has any man made the interests of humanity 
predominate in his life, over the littleness of self-love, so much as he. 
Devoted, without reserve, to his idea, he subordinated everything to it, 
to such a degree that, towards the end of his life, the universe no 
Linger existed for him. It was by this flood of heroic deeds he con- 
quered heaven. * * * * His life-deeds of benevolence will grow 
without ceasing ; his legend will call forth tears without end ; his suf- 
ferings will melt the noblest hearts; all ages will proclaim that, among 
the sons of men, there is none born greater than Jesus." 

"Whence- his greatness? It was the blossoming out of his 
inner divinity, under the ministry of angels! String,on the 
golden chain that draws us higher the heart-spirit pearls of 
the ~New Testament. It is the cable to the bridge of Hope 
that arches the mystic river, on which humanity may pass 
safe over to the morning lands. 

Gabriel, the prophets' angel, hails Mary — "Blessed art 
thou among women," announcing the advent of the Judean 
Spiritualist. Repeating the song sung at the birth of 
Crishna, a host of angels, appearing to the shepherds, sing 
at hi* birth r "Glory to God in the highest; on earth 
peace and good-will toward men." In the temple, when a 
mere lad, under the heavenly ministry, he confounds the 
Rabbis. At his baptism the spirit descends in form of a 
dove, and voices his consecration, as it has to other mediums: 
"This is my beloved son." At his temptation, when fam- 
ishing with hunger, " angels came and ministered unto 
him." Under spirit influence, he heals the diseases of 
the people. Inspired by a Samson, he drives out the 
" money changers " of the temple. Moved by his mighty 
guards, indignant at religious corruption, he utters words 
that call down upon him the anathamas of all the priest- 
hood — -a true sign of the faithful iconoclast. A pure lover 
of nature, catching his best inspirations from the beautiful 
and the true, he retires with Peter, James and John, to a 
high mountain, "and is there transfigured before them." 
Entranced, " his face shining as the sun, his raiment white 
as the light, there appears unto them Moses and Elias, talking 
with Jesus." Upheld by spirit-hands, he walks upon the 



108 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

sea of Tiberias. Spiritually clairvoyant, he reads " what is 
in man," and prophesies. Foreseeing his martyrdom, he is 
troubled, and, during his prayer, a spirit voice is heard by 
the listening people, who "said that it thundered; others 
said an angel spake to him." In Gethsemane, and before 
Pilate, "an angel appeared, strengthening him" for the 
ordeal. At his crucifixion, the electro-spirit batteries are 
strong enough to "rend the rocks," and "the veil of the 
temple, from top to bottom." So potent the influence, so 
mediumistic the people, they see the spiritual bodies of 
ascended saints, walking in their midst; these "went into 
the holy city, and appeared unto many." An angel rolls 
away the stone from his sepulchre. The spirit of Jesus 
appears to Mary, to Peter and John — to the disciples on their 
way to Emmaus, when he expounded to them his mission ; 
and at last " their eyes were opened, and they knew him ; 
and he vanished out of sight." Jubilant over the stupendous 
fact, that their divine Teacher is yet alive, they return to 
Jerusalem, and, finding the eleven chosen disciples gathered 
together, earnestly listening to their happy report of his 
appearance to Simon, lo ! the risen " Jesus himself stood 
in the midst of them, and said, ' Peace be unto you !' But 
they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed they had 
seen a spirit." Psychologically assuming the form of the 
crucified, he thus showed them his " hands and feet, and 
they handled him." 

From this data of spiritual perception, deepening in clair- 
voyance and clairaudience, they saw the real presence. 
Being substantially a spiritual organism, and measurably 
dependent upon material substance for sustenance, at his 
request, they " gave him a piece of broiled fish and an honey- 
comb, and he took it, and did eat before them ; " that is, by 
imbibation, he mediumistically partook of, and appropriated, 
their aromal effluence. 

The martyrdom of the cross endured, he appeared as the 
Christ-spirit to the assembled twelve, charging them to go 
into " all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." 



CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM THE NAZARENE. 109 

Why thus preach ? To induce belief. What then ? " These 
signs should follow believers:" 'They should cast out 
demons, speak with new tongues, lay hands on the sick, and 
heal them ; make the lame walk, the blind see, and the 
deaf hear.' Again, said Jesus: "He that believeth on me, 
the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works 
than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." The 
apostles had these gifts when listening to the charge. The 
promise, therefore, was to future believers. These signs and 
gifts do not abound in Christian churches, because they have 
departed from the "faith once delivered to the saints." But 
they do follow mediums, and prevail every where among 
Spiritualists. These works they do, being genuine believers, 
baptized with the Christ-baptism. Media are mediators 
between the winter-lands of earth, and the summer-lands of 
heaven, and their spiritual "signs" and powers increase in 
the ratio of approximation to the spiritualized planes of the 
pure and holy. 

He appeared to his apostles on the mount of Ascension, 
when "he is parted from them;" and to the little assembly 
of believers on the day of Pentacost, when they are all of 
"one accord" in a spiritual circle, and the manifestation 
comes as a "rushing, mighty wind," and "fills all the house," 
when "cloven tongues, like as fire," rest upon them, and 
they "speak in other tongues as the spirit gives them utter- 
ance." He confers upon them "the gifts of the Spirit," and 
they heal by the "laying on of hands;" they have visions, 
trances, inspirations. They are all mediurnized, and, under 
spirit control, endure deprivation, penury, want, suffering, 
persecution and martyrdom, as others have done — as their 
brothers and sisters now do. John, the beloved disciple " in 
the Spirit, (entranced) on the Lord's day," saw thrones, 
altars, crystal seas, rainbows, falling stars, white vestured 
angels with golden girdles; and was about to fall down and 
worship the "shining one," who unrolled to his clairvoyant 
vision these symbols of revelation and the millennial age, 



110 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

when lie was admonished: "See thou do it not; for I am 
thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets." 
Glorified now in the heavens, honored as a star in the 
congresses of spirits, he is inspired with love so tender, that 
his heart still beats down all the ages since, at every pulsa- 
tion, voicing the divinity within — "Little children, love 
one another ! " 



V 



ECTURE IV. 



Mediaeval S 



EDI^EVAL SPIRITUALISM. 



Chapter xiv. 



TRANSITIONAL. 



"God sends his teachers unto every age, 
To every clime, and every race of men, 
With revelations fitted to their growth, 
And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth 
Into the selfish rule of one sole race." 

Hyphened by erudition, and inspired by unitive purpose, 
to arch the years with wisdom, there were certain scholarly 
standard-bearers, who, conserving the good of the past and 
compounding it with the new, handed the philosophies of the 
ages down to incoming dispensations. Some of these were 
the cotemporaries of Jesus. Among them, were Simeon, the 
mild -and. the just; Jesus, the promising son of Sirach; the 
learned Rabbi, Hillel; Schemaia, the wise; the candid 
Gamaliel, the elder; and the distinguished writer and 
scholar, the Judaic Egyptian, Philo. These philosophic 
thinkers, laying great stress upon dreams and visions, 
believed in the appearance of spirits. Bating the Sadducees, 
it was a common dogma of the masses. Ernest Renan, the 
most learned of living Shemitic scholars, writing in his "Life 
of Jesus," of the group assembled on the banks of Lake Tibe- 
rias, to hear the IsTazarene, says : " Th.Qj believed in spectres 
and spirits." 

Philo Judjeus, born in Alexandria, a city next to Athens, 
the famous resort of the Greek literati, was, in religion, a 
8 113 



114 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Pharasee ; in philosophy, tinctured with Platonism ; and, in 
common with the thinkers of his time, given to allegorical 
interpretations. Mosaic in theology, he taught the existence 
of one invisible God — immutable, ineffable and incompre- 
hensible — the originator of all things in connection with the 
Mother of the universe, whom the Greeks termed, Sophia, or 
Wisdom. By virtue of this deific marriage, he accounted for 
all germinal entities and spiritual types of future embodi- 
ment; and, as a corollary, taught that man is a trinity com- 
pounded of essential spirit, having, in personality, a more 
materialized spiritual body, and an external or earthly body. 
A teacher of pre-existence, he maintained that matter, being 
dark and gross, is the source of evil, and that man therein 
veiled, assisted by Sophia and the good angels, is enabled to 
rise out of this temporary degradation, into the holy sunshine 
of God's light and love. Another feature of his Spiritualism 
is thus expressed in Yonge's translation : 

" The Creator of the gods is also the Father of everything 
else — -the world being an imitation visible to the outer senses of an 
archetypal model. Some souls have descended into bodies, and others 
have not thought worthy to approach any portion of the earth. * * * * 
Those whom other philosophers call demons, Moses usually calls angels; 
but they are spirits flying through the air. * * * * These spirits are 
wholly immortal and divine. Those who descend into bodies, are often 
overwhelmed, as in a whirlpool; but, by struggling, emerge, and fly 
back to their homes in the upper regions. * * * * By considering that 
angels, demons and souls, are different names for the same beings, you 
will clear away much superstition from the subject. The etherial 
regions are like populous cities, filled with immortal spirits, and 
numerous as stars in the firmament." 

Apollonus, an inspired sage of Tyana, born in Asia 
Minor, about the time of Jesus of Nazareth, was considered, 
by some, as superior in mediumistic endowments, to the son 
of Joseph and Mary. Proteus, famous for his prophetic 
powers, appeared to the mother prior to his birth, illuminat- 
ing her apartment with divine radiance. In early youth, he 
wrought many so-called miracles. The celebrated temple 
of ^Esculapius was his favorite resort for recuperation and 



MEDIEVAL TRANSITIONAL. 115 

spiritual communion. " Philostratus informs us, that he 
could read the thoughts of men, foresee future events, and, 
withal, was gifted with the wonderful power of working 
miracles." These are equally as well substantiated as those 
of Jesus. "He taught," says L. Maria Child, "there is one 
God, the Father of all, and that the numerous deities, who 
are objects of popular worship, are intermediate spirits, 
employed as agents. He invoked these spirits, placed great 
reliance upon dreams and omens, and believed that he was 
often divinely guided by spiritual beings of heaven. * * 
* * The early Christian Fathers, in alluding to him, do 
not deny the miracles he wrought, but attribute them to the 
aid of evil spirits, procured by magical arts." The purity of 
his life, owing to his affiliation with God and angels, was 
unquestioned, his benevolence almost unparalleled, and his 
sympathies so tender and touching, that multitudes hung 
upon his lips, as though charmed and chained by a power 
divine. 

Simon Magnus, the Samarian magician, who greatly troub- 
led the apostles by his so-called heresies, and miracles 
wrought independent of Christ, (Acts 9,) was a scholarly 
medium of general note. He taught that "the Source of all 
good dwells in plenitude of light; " that "Interior Thought," 
(JEnnoia) is the primitive feminine emanation therefrom; and 
that by the assistance of spirits — her children — she created 
the world, and gave them its supervision. Regarding matter 
co-eternal with God, and dark and chaotic, he deduced the 
logical conclusion, that moral and physical disorders are 
" mere perversities, occasioned by the soul's contact with it." 
In his enthusiasm and spiritual rapture, like thousands of 
other media, who, from flattery, magnify their own achieve- 
ments, he considered himself to be the " Great Power 
of God," the "Word of God," sent to redeem the world 
from evil. Jehovah was simply a leader of spirits, and rebel- 
lious at that, from whose imperfect laws he was to emanci- 
pate mankind. Not a bad proposition by any means. Like 



116 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

a sensible man, he " denied the resurrection of the body." 
He advocated holy aspirations that the soul "might be re- 
united to the Source whence all beings proceeded." Accord- 
ing to the authentic accounts, he and the Christian Fathers 
were competitors in miracles. His influence, doctrines and 
wonders, so annoyed them, they proverbially called all 
heretics, "disciples and successors of Simon, the Samaritan 
magician." They did not question the genuineness of his 
miracles, but were evidently jealous of his success, and 
attributed it to the agency of evil spirits. All the marvels 
related of him are philosophically traceable to psychology or 
real spirit power. " The fathers of the Church, Clemens 
Romanus and Anastasius Sinaita," says a writer, "have pre- 
sented us with a detail of the wonders he actually performed." 
As cases showing his mecliumship to be reliable and explain- 
able on the laws of Spiritual Philosophy, occurring in the 
present, we quote from the historian : "He flew along in the 
air ; bolts and chains were impotent to detain him ; he made 
all the furniture of the house and the table to change places, 
as required, without a visible mover; he walked through 
streets attended with a multitude of strange forms, which he 
affirmed to be the souls of the departed." 

Cerenthus, a highly educated Jew and spiritual reformer, 
connected with the Alexandrian school, professed to believe 
in Jesus, but was deeply tinged, in thought, with the oriental 
ideas in respect to spirit and matter. He rejected the dogma 
of the incarnation of Jesus, being unwilling to suppose that 
a Son of (iod could be born of woman. Like some of our 
modern thinkers, he considered Christ a spirit who dwelt 
in the divine presence before the world was made, and that 
the Jesus of Galilee was a mere man, son of Joseph and 
Mary. Grounded upon the philosophical basis of personal 
merit, as the data of redemption, he sensibly concluded 
that his Christ-angel, descending in the form of a dove, bap- 
tized him into the full glory of celestial truth ; and that 
through the culture of the graces — tenderness, justice and 



MEDLEVAL — TRANSITIONAL. 117 

wisdom, in union with deep soul sympathy with minister- 
ing spirits, he became, in a special sense, a Son of God — a 
leader of heavenly hosts, and thereby enabled to work 
miracles. Versed in the allegorical doctrines of Philo, 
accepting the mediumship of Jesus, "he regarded Jehovah as 
merely the delegated Creator, ruler of this world — a subaltern 
spirit, unacquainted with the character and purpose of the 
Supreme God, and incapable of appreciating Him. He 
admitted there are many good things in the Hebrew Sacred 
Books ; but considered them revelations of an inferior order 
of spirits ; and that an angel instructed Moses in legislation." 
Morally modest, he attributed his own miraculous gifts to 
spirits and angels. Traveling to Ephesus, in the capacity of 
a teacher, he there met, as the early Fathers state, the 
apostle John, with whom he conversed upon mind and 
matter, and "eternal life." 



Lhaptef^ XV. 



APOSTOLIC. 



"As pure, white light through colored glass, 
Truth glimmers through the soul, 
And gives a glimpse, in broken parts, 
Of one grand, perfect whole." 

Polycarp, Ignatius, Clement, Apollinaris, and others, priv- 
ileged with the personal presence of the first spiritualized 
disciples of Christ, have received the appropriate appellation 
of Apostolic Fathers. Blessed with direct inspiration from 
the spirit of Jesus and Syrian seers, summering in the 
heavens, we instinctively revere the divine utterances that 
welled from the inner fountains of their souls, and whatever 
spiritual phenomena they mediumistically evolved for the 
enlightenment of humanity. 

Polycarp, a Smyrnian bishop of eastern origin, was, in 
childhood, a slave, and by Calisto, a charitable lady, redeemed 
from bondage, in consequence of an angelic dream, and edu- 
cated at her expense. The later Christian Fathers aver that 
he listened to the preaching of the apostle John, led a blame- 
less life, presided over the Smyrnian church with assiduous 
fidelity, and was wonderfully empowered with spiritual gifts. 
During the persecutions under Marcus Aurelius, the infuri- 
ated populace demanded his death. Conscious of approach- 
ing danger, and occupied in prayer, he saw, in a vision, his 
"pillow all on fire," and exclaimed — "I shall certainly be 

118 



MEDIEVAL — APOSTOLIC. 119 

burnt alive ! " These words were regarded as prophetic. 
On the way to the stake, amid the jeers and excitements ot 
Jews and Greeks, followed by a few sorrowing friends, the 
venerable prisoner was calm and serene as sunlight; and 
when approaching the fatal scene, a loud and distinct voice 
was heard to exclaim, as from heaven — "Polycarp, be firm /" 

Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, and a loved and prominent 
disciple of the apostle John, is said to have been one of the 
little children whom Jesus took in his arms and blessed. 
The church fathers record the fact, that, in youth, he was 
"so innocent he could hear the angels sing." This heavenly 
music so impressed his mind, that, when becoming a bishop, 
he introduced into liturgical service the practice of singing 
in responses, just as he had heard, in youthful years, the 
laughing melodies of immortal choirs. Arrested by Trajan, 
he was thrown into chains, and sent to Rome, to be exposed 
to lions in the amphitheater. On the way thither, conscious 
of attending angels, inflamed with divine ecstacy, he ex- 
claimed, in language worthy the heroic reformer — " Let 
them rack my limbs, break my bones, bruise my whole 
body, hang me on the cross, burn me with fire, throw me 
into the jaws of furious beasts ; I care not for all the 
torments the devil can invent, so that I may have the 
consciousness of right, and the personal approval of 
Christ." When he passed through the city of Smyrna, in 
chains, the people embraced him and wept ; kissing his hands, 
his garments, and his chains, rejoicing in his courage." How 
beautiful his character ! how inspiring his example ! 

Apollinaris, the Ravennian bishop of note, according to the 
ecclesiastic historians, accompanied Peter, as an assistant, to 
Rome. Here that apostle laid his hands upon him, and com- 
municated the gifts of the Holy Spirit; that is, a most excel- 
lent spirit influence. Preaching on the eastern coast of Italy, 
he is said to have silenced the oracles in Roman temples, and 
" caused deceiving spirits to depart therefrom." Attractive 



120 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

in person, bold in enunciation, and miraculously gifted, he 
psychologized vast multitudes. Historians relate that he 
once saw a poor boy, born blind, washing his rags outside the 
city; and, moved with compassion, he made the sign of the 
cross on his eyes, (spiritual impressibility) and immediately 
he received his sight." This miracle, so potent for good, as 
we naturally infer from our own observation, was the means 
of converting the father, a Roman soldier, and all his house- 
hold. Among the instances of his healing, may be men- 
tioned that of a distinguished gentleman of Rome, for several 
years dumb, who, hearing of Apollinaris, sent for him, and 
was instantly cured. In this family, finding a case of obses- 
sion, he cast out a demon. This remarkable achievement 
converted the family, with five hundred more, to the 
spiritualistic principles of Jesus. 



Chapter xyi. 



POST-APOSTOLIC. 



"Gather up the fragments that nothing be lost." 

"Still gathering as they pour along, 
The voice more loud, the tide more strong." 

Like mile-posts on the panoramic highway of life, burning 
with many-colored lights, indicating the true line of spiritual 
progress, loom up in bold relief the church fathers of the 
succeeding centuries — Irenseus, Justin Martyr, Tatian the 
Assyrian, Turtullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Cyp- 
rian, and others — who officially represent the continuous 
revelations of heaven. 

Iresleus, whose name signifies peaceable, an admirer of the 
apostle John, was endowed with prophetic gifts. As quoted 
by Eusebius, those times were not so potent in spirit influx, 
as in the palmy days of the apostles; but in cases of neces- 
sity, when a whole congregation, by fasting and prayer, 
adjusted themselves in harmony with the spirit-batteries, the 
seeming dead have been restored to life. " Some most 
certainly," says Irenseus, " cast out demons ; others have a 
knowledge of things to come, as also visions and prophetic 
communications; and others still heal the sick by the impo- 
sition of hands. ***** We h ear f ma ny of the 
brethren in the church who have prophetic gifts, and who 
speak in all tongues through the Spirit, (spirit-influences) and 
who also bring to light the secret things of men for their 

121 



122 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

benefit, and expound the mysteries of God." Eusebius, in 
referring to the reasons why these spiritual gifts had 
measurably declined in the church, in his time, asserts that 
" the churches had become unworthy of them." 

Justin Martyr, of Grecian descent, familiar, in his youth, 
with the doctrines of Zeno and Aristotle, mingled, in after 
years, the acknowledged dogmas of the church with the 
Platonic philosophy. This Grecian culture the better pre- 
pared him to analyze the laws of mind and its relations with 
this and the spirit-world. "With Philo, he declared that " no 
man had ever seen God the Father," but that " it was our 
Christ, or an angel, who spoke to Moses from the bush, in 
the form of fire, and said, ' Put off thy shoes.' ' In a book 
ascribed to Justin Martyr, it is stated that "demons, spirits 
of the dead, still speak by those who are called ventrilo- 
quists." In his famous Apology, he teaches that, "when 
God created the world, he committed the superintendence 
of it to angels." Maintaining the plausible doctrines of 
obsessions, he affirmed that evil demons "inflamed women, 
corrupted boys, and spread terrors among those who did not 
examine things by reason." Not realizing they were a lower 
order of spirits, " they called them gods, and gave to each 
the name he claimed for himself; but Socrates endeavored 
to expose their practices, and by true reason draw men away 
from their influences, and the demons, by the help of wicked 
men, caused this Grecian philosopher to be put to death as 
an atheist and impious person." According to certain phe- 
nomena of the present, does not this statement concerning 
Socrates bear the semblance of truth ? 

Tertullian, son of a Roman centurion, at Carthage, 160 A. 
D., distinguished for his great eloquence, and for his familiarity 
with Grecian and Roman literature, positive and vindictive 
in nature, and given to controversy, was fearless in his affir- 
mations of spiritual gifts and communications. In his cele- 
brated work, "De Anima," he says: "We had a right to 



MEDIEVAL POST-APOSTOLIC. 123 

expect, after what was said by St. John, to anticipate prophe- 
cies; and we not only acknowledge these spiritual gifts, but 
we are permitted to enjoy the gifts of a prophetess. There 
is a sister among us who possesses a faculty of revelation. 
Commonly, during religious service, she falls into a trance, 
holding then communion with the angels, beholding Jesus 
himself, hearing divine mysteries explained, reading the 
hearts of some persons, and administering to such as 
require it. When the Scriptures are read, or Psalms sung, 
spiritual beings minister visions to her. We were speaking 
of the soul once, when our sister was in the spirit (entranced); 
and, the people departing, she then communicated to us 
what she had seen in her ecstaey, which was afterwards 
closely inquired into and tested. She declared ' she had seen 
a soul in bodily shape, that appeared to be a spirit, neither 
empty nor formless, but so real and substantial, that it might 
be touched. It was tender, shining of the color of the air, 
but in everything resembling the human form.' ' 

As an exhibition of Tertullian's ferocity of nature, posi- 
tiveness of will, and assurance of spiritual ability, as well as 
faith in angel ministry, he says : " If a man calls himself a 
Christian, and cannot expel a demon, let him be put to 
death on the spot ! " Referring to the controlling intelli- 
gences of ^Esculapius, Thanatius, and other oracles, he asserts, 
with fierce authority — " Unless these confess themselves to 
be demons, not daring to lie unto a Christian, then shed the 

BLOOD OF THAT MOST IMPOTENT CHRISTIAN ! " To Suit the 

action to the word, he commanded, "Let some one be 
brought forward at the foot of your judgment seat, who it is 
agreed is possessed with a demon. When ordered by any 
Christian to speak, that spirit shall as truly declare itself a 
demon, as elsewhere falsely a god." Tertullian, highly 
susceptible, was evidently controlled by a spirit on a very 
low plane; but being powerful and electric, he could easily 
dispossess any negative medium, even of a celestial angel. 
His success in this psychological art, was, therefore, no 
criterion of moral or religious superiority, but simply of 



124 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

physical and mental, which, like Milton's fabled Satan, 
defied the Almighty, and made war against him in heaven ! 

Hermas, brother to Pius, a bishop of Rome, wrote his 
" Pastor " about the middle of the second century. This book 
is more appropriately known as " The Shepherd of Hermas." 
Its contents, divided into " Visions, Commands, and Simili- 
tudes," remind one of the visions and angelic interviews of 
Ezekiel. Origen expresses the opinion that his books were 
divinely inspired. They give an account of the "Visions of 
Hermas," seen in his superior state, and generally inter- 
preted in a symbolical sense. Evidently, his epistles were 
too spiritual to be voted canonical. In the ninth of his 
" Similitudes," an ancient white stone of immense magni- 
tude is described, which had a new gate opened in it ; and 
in the " Visions," Hermas relates that he saw six young 
men, "or rather angels clothed in shining vestures, building 
a tower of square white stones, symbolic of the church 
militant." A writer in Appleton's Biographical Cyclopedia, 
edited by the Rev. Dr. F. L. Hawks, speaking of this book 
of Hermas, remarks, that " it is further interesting because 
affording evidence that the early Christians believed in the 
ministration of angels around them." 

Montanus, a Phrygian bishop, flourishing in the second 
century, preached a firm and fervid Spiritualism, attracting 
immense crowds. He contended that every true believer in 
Christ received a direct inspiration. This he based upon 
the prophecy of Joel — " I will pour out my spirit upon all 
flesh." Judaism was to him the morning-youth; Christi- 
anity, the manhood; the post-apostolic, the culmination or 
diffusiveness of spiritual gifts. Gifted with prophetic power, 
he maintained that himself, and two leading prophetesses, 
had received the fulness of the Divine Spirit, through whose 
agency all holy works are wrought. 



MEDIEVAL — POST-APOLISTIC. 125 

Origen, born in Alexandria, 185 A. D., consecrated himself 
to spiritual development by extreme abstemiousness, through 
spirits, who thus taught him the purer inspirations of nature. 
He attended the lectures where Platonism was inculcated, 
under the tuition of the celebrated Ammonius Saccas, which 
accounts for much of his peculiar religious structure. Con- 
spicuous among his popular teachings, were summarily 
these — That God is immanent in all space ; that stars have 
souls, and sang together on the morn of creation ; that 
angelic beings have the government of fruits and seasons ; 
that angels have etherial bodies, and evil spirits have grosser 
organisms; that all human souls are fellow-spirits who 
sinned in some previous existence, but, entering human 
bodies, would finally be restored to holiness and happiness; 
and that " all the holy men who have departed from this life, 
retaining their charity toward those whom they left behind, 
are anxious for their salvation, and assist them by their 
prayers, and their mediation with God." Origen says : 
" There are no longer any prophets or miracles among the 
Jews, but many vestiges of miraculous works among the 
Christians; namely, in the middle of the third century. 
Gregory, Origen's pupil, and bishop of Csesaria in Pontus, 
was so famous for his miracles, that he was styled Thauma- 
turgus, the wonder-worker." This Christian Father farther 
believed, that by prayer and the repetition of sacred writings, 
" demons could be cast out and numberless evils averted." 

Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, educated in the most refined 
school of Roman theology, rigorous towards heretics, was 
gifted in spiritual powers, and, in common with his 
coadjutors, was an earnest advocate of the then popular 
Spiritualism of the church. In youth he had a vision, 
which he himself thus relates : " Whilst quite awake, 
I saw a young man of more than mortal stature, who 
showed him himself, led before the pro-consul and con- 
demned to be beheaded, as a martyr to Christianity. 
Accordingly, when it came to pass, he knew exactly how 



126 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

and when it would take place." In agreement with his 
cotemporary, he taught that evil spirits obsess mortals, that 
they lurk around tutelary statues, inspire soothsayers, excite 
terror in the minds of men, disturb their sleep, destroy their 
health, etc., and " then either vanish immediately, or go out 
gradually, according to the faith of the patient, or the grace 
of him who effects the cure." He declares that " there is no 
measure or rule in the dispensation of the gifts of heaven, as 
in the gifts of earth. The spirit is poured forth liberally, 
without limits or barriers. ***** Besides visions 
of the night, even boys among us are filled with the Holy 
Spirit, and in fits of ecstacy see, hear and speak things by 
which the Lord (a leader or angelic being) thinks fit to 
instruct us." 

Either through candid ignorance of the law, or inexcusable 
bigotry, the bishop of Antioch, Theophilus, avers that it was 
evil spirits who inspired the prophets of Greece and Rome — 
" The truth of this is manifestly shown, because those who are 
possessed by demons, even to this day, are sometimes exor- 
cised by us in the name of God ; and the seducing spirits 
confess themselves to be the same demons who before 
inspired the gentile poets." 

The honest reader will clearly discover the deep and nur- 
tured jealousy existing between the Classics and Christians, 
and the studied effort at the mastery over each other's 
oracles ; and draw his conclusions, not from apparent 
victory — because of better battery forces — but according to 
justice and integrity, crediting Egyptian, Jewish and Grecian 
Spiritualists with the virtue justly their due. 

We have the most abundant proof of the continuance of 
spiritual gifts and converse with the immortals, both from the 
of classic and ecclesiastic writers, during the first six centuries 
the Christian era. Among the church historians who treated 
directly of this matter, were Eusebius, Socrates, Scholasticus, 
Sozomen, Theodoret and Evagrius. Hegisippus and Papias, 
who preceded Eusebius, testify to the prevalence of spiritual 
dreams, prophecies, trances and seership, in their age. 



MEDIAEVAL — POST-APOLISTIC. 127 

Gregory, a Thaumaturgist, and noted disciple of Origen, 
was famous for the great number of miracles or spiritual 
manifestations, wrought through his mediatorial organization. 

Augustine, flourishing about the middle of the fifth 
century, bears multiform testimony to the continuance of the 
miraculous gifts of Christians. " Besides the restoration of 
a child to life, he relates twenty miracles performed under 
his observation within the space of two years." 

Ambrose, living towards the end of the fourth century, 
is stated to have fallen asleep ( entranced ) at the altar on a 
certain Sunday, remaining so for several hours, to the great 
wonder of the people. Awakening, he declared that he had 
attended the funeral of St. Martin, and performed the 
service. The fact noted, it was ascertained that St. Martin 
had died at the time specified by this seer. He also assures 
us that " the martyr Agnes was seen one night at her grave, 
surrounded by a choir of singing maidens." 

Jerome, living in the fifth century, relates numerous 
miracles occurring in his time, such as " the restoration of 
sight to a woman ten years blind, the instant cure of paral- 
ysis, and the casting out of demons. " These miracles 
are paralleled by what are now denominated " spiritual 
manifestations." 

Mosheim, (vol. i. p. 104) in his ecclesiastical history, says : 

" The light of the Gospel was introduced into Iberia, a province of 
Asia (now called Georgia), in the following manner : a certain woman 
was carried into that country as a captive, during the reign of Con- 
stantine ; and by the grandeur of her miracles, and the remarkable 
sanctity of her life and manners, she made such an impression upon the 
king and queen, that they abandoned their false gods, embraced the 
faith of the G-ospel, and sent to Constantinople for proper persons to 
give them and their people a more satisfactory and complete knowledge 
of the Christian religion." 



128 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

This was in the fourth century. After maturely consider- 
ing the whole ground and all the authorities, on the next 
page he says : 

" I am willing to grant, that many events have been rashly deemed 
miraculous which were the result of the ordinary laws of nature ; and, 
also that pious frauds were sometimes used for the purpose of giving 
new degrees of weight and dignity to the Christian cause. But I 
cannot, on the other hand, assent to the opinions of those who maintain 
that in this century, miracles had entirely ceased; and that, at this 
period, the Christian Church was not favored with any extraordinary 
or supernatural mark of a Divine power engaged in its cause." 

Constantine's reign infused a sort of pride into the Chris- 
tianity of that and subsequent centuries. With national 
ambition and individual worldliness spurred to intense 
action by reigning rival powers, there commenced about this 
time a rapid decline of spiritual gifts among nominal chris- 
tians, forcibly reminding one of the Apostle Paul's prophecy 
of the "falling away" that should come. Christianity, a 
shell devoid the spirit-substance, still flounders in this 
"fallen" condition. 



Lhaptef^ xyii. 



NEO-PLATONIC 



"We la.ck but open eye and ear 
To find the Orient's marvels here. 

For still the new transcends the old 
In signs and tokens manifold." 

As Paris to France socially, as Jerusalem to Syria reli- 
giously, as Ephesus to the thinkers of Southern Asia ideally, 
so Alexandria to all nations of the first Christian centuries. 
Founded by Alexander the Great, on the commercial tho- 
roughfare between Europe and Asia, it was the center of 
philosophy, the birth-place of symbols, the arena of all new 
theories, attractive for her unparalleled libraries, numbering, 
in her palmier period, seven hundred thousand books, and 
celebrated for accommodating, at one time within her classic 
precincts, fourteen thousand students ! The literary world in 
miniature, her fountains of truth, flowing over all deserts 
and ruins and mausoleums and Edens of beauty, have bathed 
the whole earth in historic and inspirational wisdom. Her 
eclectic professors, cooling the egotistic ardor of the Church 
Fathers, plucked their boasted plumes by exhibiting superior 
art and literature, magic and miracle. 

This Alexandrian school of philosophy, based upon the 
psychological systems of Pythagoras and Plato, drew its pri- 
mal inspirations from India and Egypt, and, amalgamating 
with, overshadowed the dogmas of Christianity. 
129 



130 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Dion Chrysostom, writing in the time of Trajan, says : " I 
see among you Alexandrians, not only Greeks and Italians, 
Syrians, Sybians, Ethiopians and Arabians, but Bactrians, 
Scythians, Persians, and travelers from India, who flow 
together into this city, and are always with you." 

Gnosticism, (ginosko, to know) budding in the first, blos- 
somed more fully among educated classes in the second 
century. The Gnostics were Inductionists. Gnosis was 
considered a divine science; and, wielded by those metaphys- 
ical thinkers, successfully contended against Christianity, in . 
the estimation of the literati. It is averred, with great plau- 
sibility, that the Asiatic Gnostics were personally acquainted 
with the Gymnosophists of India and- the Magi of Persia. 
The Christian Fathers, owing to a lack of literary culture, 
were disinclined to meet them in discussion. Mani, born in 
Persia, Marcus Tatian, Cerinthus, the father of Gregory,' of 
Nazianzen, were prominent among the Gnostics. These, 
with others of the same school, held to the oriental philo- 
sophical theory, that all spirits emanated from God, and were 
a part of him ; that angels, by divine appointment, exercised 
a superintendence over the affairs of this world as guardians; 
that mortals had the high privilege of communion with these 
celestials ; that Christ, as a heavenly spirit, was not invested 
with a mortal body after his resurrection, or, better, emanci- 
pation ; that souls, as cenons, emanating from the infinite 
fountain of Deity, by a law of progress, returned purified 
to the bosom-source whence they came. Clement of Alex- 
andria, says: "Their worship consists in continual attention 
to their souls; in meditations upon the Divinity, as being 
inexhaustible love." 

Ammonius Saccas, profound, scholarly and eclectic, com- 
bining in his rare organism the extremes of conservatism 
and radicalism, organized this famous school about the year 
220 A. D. Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Jamblichus, and 
others, rejecting the mouldy crumbs of Hebrew revelations, 
and versed in the elements and principles characterizing the 



MEDIEVAL — NEO-PLATONIC. 131 

oriental theosophies, were among the eminent disciples of 
Ammonius. His lofty purpose was to combine the good and 
beautiful found in the theologies and philosophies of India, 
Egypt, China, Persia, Judea, Greece and Rome, in fact, all 
nations in all times, and out of these vast materials to form 
a grand eclecticism, alive with all the thought, wisdom and 
virtue of the ages, like a superb temple compounded of all 
the kingdoms of life in the universe. 

Plotinus, eleven years the student of Ammonius Saccas, 
retaining his Egyptian idiosyncracies, educated at Alexan- 
dria, and of immeasurable influence in society, was the 
inspiring animus of Neo-Platonism, and gave to it much of 
its prestige and fame in the world. His metaphysical doc- 
trines run thus: That there is one God, the perfect, uncre- 
ated principle; that Wisdom is the Logos of the good; that 
from Wisdom and Love proceeded the souls of all things ; 
that the human soul, an essential portion of the Divine Soul, 
can, in its highest states, penetrate into all worlds' mysteries, 
and hold communion with the essence of things; that this 
life is a mere flash of light, which God, in his goodness, 
grants to souls for a season ; that, whilst this earth-life lasts, 
memory of the prior existence vanishes, but in the next life, 
the mind beholds the past, present and future, at one glance; 
that poets, lovers, musicians, philosophers, more etherial- 
winged, can the easier ascend into the superior regions ; that 
miracles are in harmony with fixed principles of the uni- 
verse ; that self-denial of all lusts and passions is inductive 
to conscious communication with and glory of the gods, or 
angels. His enthusiastic disciples ascribed to him mirac- 
ulous gifts. In their writings it is frequently affirmed that 
he could discern the secret thoughts of men. When Por- 
phyry contemplated suicide, he discovered it without the 
least outward intimation. When a theft had been commit- 
ted in the house, he collected the domestics and immediately 
pointed out the culprit, without asking a question. They 



132 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

requested him to evoke his guardian spirit, which the Gre 
cians called his " demon. ,, He refused for a long time. 
Finally, yielding to their entreaties, they saw a god appear in 
their midst. He healed the most dangerous diseases, 
obtained great reputation for foretelling future events, and 
walked in daily converse with spirits and angels. Emilius, 
urging him to attend the, services of the church, he replied, 
" The spirits must come to me, not I to the spirits." After 
his departure to the spirit world, in the sixty-sixth year of 
his age, his friends inquired of an oracle as to the residence 
of his soul. The response was given in verse, to the eifect, 
that owing to his gentleness, goodness, elevated ideas, purity 
of life, his soul had rejoined the just spirits of Minos, Rhada- 
manthus and .zEacus. By virtue of these graces he was per- 
mitted to behold, face to face, the more exalted and glorified 
of the celestial worlds. 

Porphyry, of Phcenecian descent, was one of the most dis- 
tinguished disciples of Plotinus, succeeding him in the third 
century as president of the Alexandrian school. It is as 
morally impossible for a Roman Church father to speak or 
write impartially of Porphyry, as for a modern Protestant of 
the orthodox school, to award Spiritualists their just position. 
Deeply read in the lore of the past, an ardent admirer of 
Plato, Porphyry is described by the church historian, Mean- 
der, as "a man of noble spirit, united with profound intel- 
lectual attainments ; a man of the East, in whom the oriental 
basis of character had been completely fused with the 
elements of Grecian, culture." He devoted much time to 
the study of magic, called Theurgy ; to the psychologic and 
mystic relations of mind to mind ; to the necessity of self- 
abnegation, as preparatory to the highest angelic com- 
munion ; and, like his predecessors, Ammonius and Plotinus, 
he sought to establish a universal eclecticism in religion. 
Nearly all his works against Christianity were burned by 
Christians — a proof this of their inestimable value. When a 
sectarian man cannot meet his neighbor with sound reason, 



[MEDIEVAL — NEO-PLATONIC. 133 

he tries force, fire, perjury, theft ! They who knoio the truth, 
love criticism ; and rather than burn philosophy, they cherish 
it as gratefully as flowers do the sunshine. 

Porphyry taught that all religions have a divine origin ; 
that a high standard of morals and purity of life are indis- 
pensable to happiness ; that men are justified in separating 
from their angular wives to attain greater holiness and more 
time to devote to philosophy; that it is wrong to obey civil 
laws when in opposition to higher law written by God in the 
eternal constitution of the soul ; and, quoting Apollonius in 
favor of silent prayer, that such devotion is alone worthy the 
Supreme Being. He beautifully says, that "Similarities 
unite. Shut up in the body, as in a prison, we ought to pray 
to gods and angels to deliver us from our fetters. They are 
our true fathers ; and we ought to pray to them like chil- 
dren exiled from the paternal mansion." He believed in the 
controlling intelligences of heaven, and was much " impressed 
with the power of evil spirits," often referring to them as the 
cause of disease, personal quarrels, and national wars. He 
also maintained that the spirit of prophecy could be attained 
by abstemious living; and that his soul was once so elevated 
to a complete union with God, he caught golden glimpses of 
the eternal world. 



Jamblichus, Syrian by birth, student of Porphyry, ap- 
proached, in precept and practice, nearer the jSTazarene 
than any cotemporary Neo-Platonist. He lived in the reign 
of Constantine, when Indian philosophy and Grecian theo 
sophy were the cherished principles of the erudite. Teaching 
the oriental doctrine of emanations, he mingled theurgy, 
magic and philosophy in his crucible of thought, daily 
inspected by Alexandrian students. His disciples believed him 
possessed with supernatural power. History affirms, that 
whilst engaged in prayer, spirits raised him fifteen feet in the 
air. Accompanied by his pupils to the baths of Gadara, in 
Syria, he inquired the names of two springs of water. On 



134 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

being informed they were Eros and Anteros — deities acknowl- 
edged by the Greeks — he scarcely touched the water, utter-' 
ing a few words, when there rose up before them two beau- 
tiful children, who clasped their arms around Jamblichus' 
neck. From this moment none of his adherents doubted 
his communion with the gods. His biographer, Eunapius, a 
very learned and conscientious writer, narrates many other 
miraculous things attributed to him. So wonderful were 
they, that " neither Edesius, nor his friends, have dared to 
put them in their works." In order to attain the highest 
degrees of mediumship — then called Theurgy — he and his 
wise companions, like the Egyptian Hierophants, prepared 
themselves by fasting, watching, praying, and devout reli- 
gious reflection. These spiritual conditions introduced into 
realms of divine exaltation, are thus described by Jamblichus 
in his " Mysteries : " " The senses are in a sleeping state. 
The Theurgist has no command of his faculties, no conscious- 
ness of what he says or does. * * * Carried by a divine 
impulse, he goes through impassable places, through iire and 
water without knowing where he is. A divine illumination 
takes full possession of the man, absorbs all his faculties, 
motions, and senses ; making him speak what he does not 
understand, or rather seem to speak it; for he is, in fact, 
merely the minister, or instrument, of the God who pos- 
sesses him." What a perfect description of modern trance, 
by this ancient Neo-Platonist ! 

Of prayer, this most devout philosopher says : " Frequent 
prayer nourishes our superior part, renders the receptacle of 
the soul more capacious for the gods, discloses divine things 
to men, accustoms them with the splendors of the world of 
intelligences, and gradually so perfects our union with pure 
spirits, as to lead us back to the Supreme God." 

Jamblichus was familiar with clairvoyance in all its phases, 
with healing by spirit influence, with dreams as spirit impres- 
sions, and with the beauties and glories of the trance, both 
from observation and experience. He explains what is said 



MEDIEVAL — NEO-PLATONIC. 135 

by Porphyry : " That some immediately fall into a trance on 
hearing music ; and he shows an intimate acquaintance with 
instances of persons hearing most divine music, especially on 
approaching death." 

Well, therefore, did Jamblichus, in his celebrated work on 
the "Mysteries," assert that admissibility to, and communion 
with, spiritual beings, " is eternal and cotemporary with the 
soul." 

Proclus, "the heir of Plato," the ascetic teacher of Athens, 
the young prodigy of the Alexandrian philosophy, saw, in his 
day, the culmination of Neo-Platonism. He commenced his 
forty-third chapter on the theology of Plato thus: "Let us 
speak concerning the demons who are allotted the superin- 
tendence of mankind. * * * The highest genus of 
demons, being proximate to the gods, is uniform and divine. 
The next in order to these demons, possessing a highly intel- 
lectual nature, preside over individuals, as well as over the 
ascent and descent of souls." The Egyptian priests admired 
Plotinus as being governed (on account of the purity of his 
life) by a divine demon. And with great propriety, also, 
does Socrates call his demon a god, for he belonged to the 
first and highest demons. Proclus further says : " Socrates 
perceived a certain voice proceeding from his demon. This 
he asserts in the Thecetetus and in the Phcedrus." What the 
Grecians termed " divine demons," we denominate minister- 
ing angel guides, who delight to do the will of the Eternal 
Father. 



y 



ECTURE V. 



Churchal S 



URCHAL OPIRITUALISM. 



Lhaptef^ xyiii, 



CHURCHIANIC. 



"Oh, never rudely will I blame their faith 
In the might of gods and angels ! " 

"Sometimes there glimpses on my sight 
Through Christian wrongs the eternal right; 
And step by step since time began 
I see the steady gain of man." 

Christianity, heretofore spiritually spontaneous as taught 
by the ISTazarene, became sectarized and nationalized — a 
court-religion under the reign of Constantine. 

Not a vestige of similarity is traceable between the nature- 
teachings and pure, sweet life of the gentle son of Joseph and 
Mary, and the worldly Christianity of the 19th century. 
From this fatal Constantinian era, its purity more rapidly 
paled, until an eclipse of spiritual midnight brooded over its 
blinded devotees. Fossils neither flash nor flame with vig- 
orous life. Few blossoms of inspiration come from a 
leafless, sapless, withered trunk. When doctrines, however 
beautiful, crystalize into creeds, they die and rust away 
into Lethean forgetmlness. 

Roman Catholicism, imitated by her schismatic daughter, 
Protestantism, adopted, in her externals, a paganized Judaism, 
combining the ceremonials of the Mosaic and later classic, 
with their sacerdotal, hierarchal paraphernalia, the better to 
seize and appropriate the more cultured religious theses 
taught in the mystic temples of the orientals, for priestly 

139 



140 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

power and worldly aggrandizement. As every midnight has 
its stars, and every stormy ocean its pearls, so, under the cold 
drapery of the royalized church, were genuine silver-glim- 
merings of the aspirational and spiritual. 

Guizot, in his recent work entitled, "Meditations upon the 
Religious Questions of the Day," in which he evidently uses 
the word supernatural for spiritual, says : " Belief in the super- 
natural is a fact natural, primitive, universal and constant in 
the life and history of the human race. Unbelief in the 
supernatural begets materialism, materialism sensuality, sen- 
suality social convulsion, amid whose storms man learns 
again to believe and pray." 

Constantine, having espoused Christianity, and being men- 
aced in consequence by its enemies, was compelled to take 
up arms for self-defence. Eusebius states that he heard 
Constantine declare, under oath, that "when he was going 
to attack the tyrant Maxentius, and was full of doubt, as he 
was resting in the middle of the day, and his soldiers about 
him, he and all the soldiers saw a luminous cross in the 
heavens, attended by a troop of angels, who said, ' 0, Con- 
stantine ! by this go forth to victory ! ' * * * At night, 
Christ appeared to him in a dream, having the same cross, 
which he ordered to have wrought upon his banners, with 
the words, ' By this conquer ! ' " Under this inspiring sym- 
bol he did conquer. 

Lactantius corroborates the statement, that the sign of the 
cross on the shields of the soldiers, was put there in conse- 
quence of a vision or dream. Socrates, Philostorgius, Gela- 
sius, Nicephorus, all testify to the appearance of the cross in 
the sky. It was a most magnificent psychological presenta- 
tion, produced by ministering spirits. 

Sozomen, a church historian of the 5th century, informs 
us "that when Julian was killed in Persia, his death was 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 141 

seen in Asia by one of his officers, at a distance of twenty 
days' travel; and by Didymus, a blind Christian, in Egypt." 
He relates an incident of Eutychian, a Bithynian monk, a 
friend of Constantine, who desired the jailers to remove the 
fetters from a prisoner sorely tortured ; but, on being refused, 
he went to the prison, attended by Auscanon, a venerable 
presbyter of the church. At their approach the doors of the 
prison opened, and the chains fell from the prisoner's limbs. 
This finds corroboration in the case of Peter, who was 
released from prison by an angel, and of the Davenport Bro- 
thers, who were helped to make their escape, by angel power, 
from prison walls, in Oswego, N". Y., thrust therein at the 
instigation of the church. 

Augustine, a famous Latin Church Father, living in the 
4th century, gives some very beautiful expressions of joy 
respecting angel guardians : • 

" They watch over and guard us with great care and diligence in all 
places, and at all hours assisting, providing for our necessities with 
solicitude; they intervene betwixt us and Thee, Lord, conveying to 
Thee our sighs and groans, and bringing down to us the dearest bless- 
ings of Thy grace. They walk with us in all our ways ; they go in 
and out with us. attentively observing how we converse with piety in 
the midst of a perverse generation ; with what ardor we seek Thy 
kingdom and its justice, and with what fear and awe we serve Thee. 
They assist us in our labors ; they protect us in our rest ; they encour- 
age us in battle; they crown us in victories; they rejoice in us when 
we rejoice in Thee ; and they compassionately attend us when we suffer 
or are afflicted for Thee. Great is their care of us, and great is the 
effect of their charity for us." 

Julian, Emperor of Rome, nephew of Constantine, famous 
in history for his effort to re-establish the shrines of oriental 
worship, and stigmatized "Apostate," because, being a 
Christian, he patronized the Neo-Platonic Philosophy. When 
a boy, he was strongly charmed by the sunlight, and consid- 
ered it an unconscious longing after the God with whom he 
was related. The sun was to him a beautiful symbol of the 
God of the universe. Accordingly, " the private chapel in 



142 DOCTRINES OP SPIRITUALISTS. 

his palace was consecrated to the sun ; but his gardens were 
filled with altars and statues of the gods and angels." He 
maintained that there were messengers between God and 
men, and sometimes, for special purposes, resided in earthly 
temples — haunted houses. No wonder the church called 
him "Apostate/ " 

" When Julian and his brother Gallus were induced to undertake 
the labor of erecting a chapel over the tomb of the martyr Mammas, 
the work went on rapidly under the hands of Gallus, but the stones 
which Julian laid were constantly overthrown as by some invisible 
agency. Gregory of Naziangen says that he had this from eye 
witnesses ; and he seems to regard it as a prophetic miracle." 

The Greek Church of Russia, receiving her apostolic hier- 
archy and priesthood frcm Greece, has carefully maintained 
the integrity of the primitive Church with less innovations, 
doubtless, than the Catholic, and is, therefore, more authori- 
tative in respect to what the Apostolic Fathers taught. The 
doctrine of ministering spirits, working miracles through 
their patron saints, is plainly set forth in their religious 
histories. 

M. Mouravieff, a church historian, tells us that " his or her 
'angel' is the customary phrase in Russia for the patron 
saint after whom any one is named; but that the}- also 
believe in guardian angels appointed to each baptized person. 
The church counts, as its chief guardians and intercessors, a 
considerable number of saints. The Russian Church believes 
firmly in 'the doctrines of the holy Icons (pictures of saints 
and the Virgin), in relics, the sign of the venerable cross, of 
tradition, of the mystery of the most pure blood and body 
of Christ, of the invocation of saints and angels, of the state 
of souls after death, and of prayers for the departed.' " 

Howitt, in his " History of the Supernatural," adverts to 
the fact, that " in the time of Peter the Great, the Anglican 
Church made application to be admitted to unity with the 
CEcumenical Church, and desired the Russian patriarch to 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 143 

transmit their prayer to Constantinople ; but the Russian 
prelates, having consulted, declined, because the Anglican 
Church had heretieally renounced the traditions of the 
Fathers, the invocations of saints, and the reverencing of 
Icons — sacred pictures." 

St. Bernard, a healing and most benevolent priest, thus 
alludes to the divine care over us : 

" We owe to our guardian angels great reverence, devo- 
tion and confidence. Penetrated with awe, walk always with 
circumspection, remembering the presence of angels, to whom 
you are given in charge, in all your ways. In every apart- 
ment, in every closet, in every corner, pay respect to your 
angel. Dare you do before him what you dare not commit 
if I saw you ?" * * * * * * * * 

" Consider with how great respect, awe, and modesty we 
ought to behave in the sight of the angels, lest we offend 
their eyes, and render ourselves unworthy of their company. 
Woe to us if they who could chase away our enemy, be 
offended by our negligence, and deprive us of their visits.'' 

Gregory VII., (Hildebrand) of the 11th century, was a 
noted thaumaturgist or seer. When Rodolph marched 
against Henry IV., this pope was so certain of success that he 
ventured to prophesy, both in speech and writing, that hi8 
enemy would be conquered and slain in battle, and would 
transpire before St. Peter's day, which prophecy was literally 
fulfilled. 

Roger Bacon, of the 12th century, a Franciscan Friar, the 
accredited inventor of the telescope, and a profound scholar, 
who much disturbed the church by his seership and science, 
under the controlling intelligences of the spirit-world, pene- 
trated into the mysteries of life, and, piercing the cloudy 
sun-mists of intervening ages, seized upon the occult forces 
that bowed as servants to his beck and adapted them by 
invention to practical uses. 



144 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

A profound study of magic with the natural sciences, made 
trim liberal and progressive. The clergy prohibited his 
lectures, and confined the circulation of his writings to the 
walls of the convent. Finally a council of Sanfranciscans 
condemned his books and sent him to prison. He was 
specially gifted with the power to discern future events, being 
highly mediumistic. Some of his remarkable prophecies, 
uttered six hundred years ago, relating to modern inventions, 
were strikingly practical, as the following testifies : 

" Bridges, unsupported by arches, will be made to span tbe foaming 
current. Man shall descend to the bottom of the ocean, safely breath- 
ing, and treading with firm step on the golden sands, never brightened 
by the light of day. Call but the sacred powers of Sol and Luna into 
action, and behold a single steersman sitting at the helm, guiding the 
vessel which divides the waves with greater rapidity than if she had 
been propelled by a crew of marines toiling at the oars ; and the loaded 
chariot no longer encumbered by the panting steeds, shall dart on its 
course with resistless force and l'apidity. Let the simple elements do 
the labor ; ■ bind the eternal forces and yoke them to the same plow." 

The excellent writer, Prof. Brittan, says that " these 
prophecies of Bacon embrace the Suspension Bridge, the 
.Diving Bell, Steam Navigation, the Railroad, and the Steam 
Plow, in the same chain of events, all of which are among 
the accomplished realities of-day." 

Infinite Spirit is infinite causation ; finite spirit in man is 
finite causation. Just so far as this finite causation comes 
into relation with causes outside and independent of himself, 
is he able to read the future. Exalted spirits standing upon 
the plane of causes, and, seeing with unsealed vision certain 
operative forces, are enabled to determine the legitimate 
effects thence derived. Prophecy, therefore, is just as nat- 
ural as cause and effect. Angels, spirits, men, possess the 
power of prevision just in the ratio of exaltation in wisdom. 

Peter d'Apono, 1250 A. D., an eminent philosopher, math- 
ematician and astrologer, is said to have been possessed by 
seven spirits, from whom he received all information he 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 145 

desired relating to the liberal arts and sciences. Tried in 
ecclesiastic council for practicing magic, he died before his 
inquisitors, who, to glut their insatiable churchal malignancy, 
dug up his bones and publicly burned them ! 

Bishop Grossetete, of the 13th century, a man of most 
transcendent intellect and superior acquirements, was en- 
dowed with spiritual gifts. The poet, Gower, informs us 
that he constructed a head of brass in such a manner that 
mediumistically it answered philosophical questions and 
foretold future events. 

" Nicolas, of Basle, and his friends predicted the death of Gregory 
XL, which took place at the time foretold — namely, in the fourth week 
in Lent, 1378. They foresaw also the grand schism in the Popedom, 
which commenced in the following year. So deeply was Nicolas con- 
cerned for the shameful corruptions of the church and of the papal 
court, that in his seventieth year, in the year 1376, taking a trusty 
' Friend of God ' with him, he went to Rome ; and, in a personal 
interview with Gregory, warned him of the troubles coming, and of his 
own death, if he did not commence a real and sweeping reform. The 
pope received this mission kindly but did not profit by it, and died as 
they had foreshown. Many wonderful spiritual phenomena and reve- 
lations are related as attending the meeting of these Friends of God," 
— a sect of the 4th century, identified with the Catholic Church, that 
sought to purify it of its gross iniquities through a more spiritual 
and angelic life. 

Martin Luther, though careful to reject the doctrine of 
miracles and the continuation of the spiritual gifts — the fatal 
error of Protestantism — was forced to admit in his day of 
terrible conflict with the Mother Church, that " angels were 
watching and protecting," and " 'all up in arms, putting on 
their armor, and girding their swords about them ' ; but he 
had so bitterly ridiculed and so heartily abused the Catholics 
for their manufactured miracles, that he was now afraid 
to have the power of working true ones, lest they should 
retort." 

In this matter we discover in Luther, not only a want of 
candor, but also of courage — for according to his own expe- 
rience and confession in his Table Talk and otherwise, he was 
10 



146 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

convicted of direct spiritual inspiration and the probable 
visitation of spirits and angels. This apparent cowardice 
and most- saddening mistake in the Reformation, constitute 
the tare in the church-field, which has increased till all the 
wheat is smutty. This reaction from the abuse of spiritual 
gifts in the Catholic Church, has been all along a killing frost, 
destroying every beautiful flower of Paradise. Reader! 
have you thought of the painful fact, that all the Protestant 
Churches date their spiritual decay back three hundred years 
to this fatal error of the fathers of the Reformation, whilst 
the Mother Church, assailed on every side, a thousand times 
menaced with annihilation, lives on amid Protestant decay, 
fresh and green in her soul — beautiful vines climbing walls 
in ruin ? 

The Catholic Church never lost its cynosure star — the 
probable ministry of angels. As ever her devotees have 
said, " We believe in communion with the saints," those 
angels have felt the prayer and kept the estate secure from 
blast. The Catholics, clinging with loving tenacity to the 
beautiful belief of " communion with the saints," have, from 
time immemorial, preserved it in imposing anniversary. 
The second of October is the Feast of Angel Guardians, in 
commemoration, as Alban Butler says, of" a communication 
of spiritual commerce between us on earth and his holy 
angels, whose companions we hope one day to be in the 
kingdom of his glory." 

But Luther's vacuum was filled with his " roaring devil !" 
that haunted him in all his travels and labors, as a " familiar 
spirit." The devil supped with him, slept with him, watched 
with him, conversed with him, spoke to him in all calamities 
and misfortunes. On one occasion, when this spirit inter- 
fered with his translation, perhaps only for a playful taunt, 
he threw his inkstand at him. This iconoclast had a great 
deal of trouble with this spirit, who evidently delighted in 
a frolic to keep up a healthful condition with his medium. 
He little realized that his devil, attracted to his sphere of 
life, was a power that intensified his will and strengthened 



CIIURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 147 

him in his reformatory work. Give thy devil his due, O 
Luther! Bat these days we have learned not to call these 
health-giving, rough and playful spirits, devils, but fellow- 
laborers. 

Poor Luther, so protestant as to drive away the higher 
angels, so iconoclastic as to attract destructive spirits to be 
his companions ! We do not wonder that all his church 
children have been obsessed, and do to this day see only a 
" devil " in Spiritualism — the angel of God returned to 
rescue Protestantism from death. " As a man thinketh so 
is he." Devilish conditions clothe all spirits with demoniac 
attributes. Look within, O dying Church! and behold 
thyself entombed with the real Gadarene ! — blank skepti- 
cism — wintry atheism, " legion " of doubts and bigotries'! 

Philip Melancthon, more spiritual in organization than 
Luther, had a more equably balanced faith in the ministry of 
spirits, and relates several instances of such interposition in 
times of peril. He tells us, that he 'had seen spectres, 
(spirits) and that he knew many men, worthy of credit, who 
not only had seen, but had likewise discoursed with them." 

Leckendoye, on the authority of Solomon Glasse, states 
that Melancthon was recalled from death by Luther's prayers, 
positively indicating his healing power under the influence 
of his attending spirits:: 

" Luther arrived, and found Philip about to give up the 
ghost. His eyes were set, his understanding was almost 
gone, his speech had failed, and also his hearing; his face 
had fallen ; he knew no one, and had ceased to take either 
solids or liquids. At this spectacle Luther is filled with the 
utmost consternation — turning away towards the window, he 
called most devoutly upon God. After this, taking the hand 
of Philip, and well knowing what was the anxiety of his 
heart and conscience, he said, f Be of good courage, Philip ; 
thou shalt not die.' While he utters" these things, Philip 
begins, as it were, to revive and to breathe, and gradually 



148 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

recovering his strength, is at last restored to health." Mel- 
ancthon, writing to a friend, said, " I should have been a 
dead man, had I not been recalled from death by the coming 
of Luther." 

John Calvin, " the iron-clad," the actual murderer of 
Servetus for heresy, the father of " election, reprobation and 
Infant Damnation," and of a church still as rigid as his stern 
self — a man whose sinewy temperament would not originate 
or indulge in spiritual fancies, as we might naturally suppose, 
if he believed at all in spirits, accepted the doctrine of the 
so-called " supernatural V under the " agency of Satan ! " He 
however claimed to have a genuine spirit of prophecy, and 
to be clairaudient, as Beza shows in his biography of Calvin. 

Columbus, toiling seventeen years under the lofty ideal of 
faith, at length procured the ships that wooed the shores of 
the western world. He was pronounced a " visionary and 
fanatic." When wrestling with sorest difficulties, he heard 
an unknown voice whispering in his ear, " God will cause 
thy name to be wonderfully resounded through the earth, 
and give thee the keys to the gates of the ocean which are 
closed with strong chains." 

Cicero gave this remarkable prediction : " Across the 
ocean, and after many ages, an extensive and rich country 
will be discovered^ and in it will arise a hero, who, by his 
counsel and arms,, shall deliver his country from the slavery 
by which she was oppressed. This he shall do, under 
favorable auspicies ; and oh ! how much more admirable 
will he be than our Brutus and Camillus ! " This prediction 
was known to Accius, and was embellished in poetry. Thus 
prophets have been honored and prophecies preserved in all 
ages of the world. 

The Waldenses of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
resolved to be pure and clear of Catholic idolatry, were 
pursued by their enemies with the most malignant perse- 
cutions to exterminate them from the earth. Amous the 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 149 

fastnesses of the Pedmontese Alps, they defended themselves 
under the miraculous intervention of the spirits, astonishing 
as that of Israel under the leadership of Joshua, guided by 
the reputed Jehovah and his retinue of warlike spirits. 
Leger, their historian, informs us that on one occasion they 
were " carried off in great numbers from their harvest fields, 
and cast into different prisons ; but their enemies, to their 
unbounded astonishment, soon found them all at liberty 
again, equally to the amazement of the captives themselves, 
who knew nothing of the arrest of their fellows in different 
places at the same time, and were set free again ' miracu- 
lously,' and in a wonderful manner." 

Agrippa, fifteenth century, remarkable for his knowledge 
of the languages, and vast range of scholarship, possessed 
rare spiritual powers, which he delighted to exhibit in 
European courts. When at the court of John George, 
Elector of Saxony, with Erasmus and others, eminent in the 
republic of letters, he was solicited to call up the spirit of 
Tully. Arranging the audience, Tully appeared upon the 
rostrum and reiterated his oration for Roscius " with such 
astonishing animation, exaltation of spirit, and soul-stirring 
gestures, that all present, like the Romans of old, were ready 
to pronounce his client innocent of every charge brought 
against him." 

By means of the vital magnetic effluences from the medi- 
umistic Agrippa, the spirits uniting their own spheral emula- 
tions, Tully was enabled to materialize himself and appear 
upon the rostrum en persona, just as the angels, materializing 
themselves, rolled away the stone from the sepulchre of 
Jesus, and as they now exhibit spirit hands in visible form. 

Bodin, a celebrated writer on jurisprudence, informs us 
of a person who used to pray heartily to God, morning and 
evening, that He would send him " a good angel to guide him 
in all his actions ; " and, in answer to his soul's entreaty, a 
spirit at last responded; at first in dreams and visions to correct 
certain bad habits ; afterwards, warning him of dangers, and 



150 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

showing him how to overcome difficulties. When his medi- 
umship was better developed, he heard the voice of his angel, 
saying, " I will save thy soul. It is I that appeared to thee 
before." This spirit would knock at his door — spirit 
rappings — direct him in his devotions — guard him in his 
sickness — prevent his reading anything morally injurious — 
warn him of evil by touching his left ear, of good results by 
touching his right ear — map out for him the true path of life 
by signs, visions and impressions. 

Trithemius, Abbot of Spanheim, flourishing in the fifteenth 
century, author of many valuable works, and a man of great 
learning and dignity, gifted with second sight, saw his 
departed wife and recognized her. His biographer states 
that after long pondering upon " secrets unknown to men," 
until ashamed of his seeming folly to discover " impossi- 
bilities" he was one night visited by a spirit who assured him 
that his deep thoughts were inspired. The whole mystery was 
explained, and the result was the secret instrument entitled 
Stenographic^, which, doubtless, was nothing more nor less 
than a scientific revelation of mental telegraphing, kindred 
with spirit communications. 

In his work on " Secret Things and Secret Spirits," he 
inculcates the old Hindoo virtue of self-denial: "It is fit 
that we who endeavor to rise to an elevation so sublime, 
should study first to leave behind carnal affections, the frailty 
of the senses, and the passions that belong thereto." 

Tasso, the first of Italian poets, was a genius beyond the 
capacity of his age, and so brilliant that popes, cardinals, 
princes, and the court of Ferrara, where he resided, esteemed 
themselves honored with his presence. He ranks among the 
most distinguished Spiritualists of the ages. Daily convers- 
ing with inspiring spirits, his poems abound with beautiful 
picturings of angels and loving demons, who not only peopled 
the realm of his imagination, but constituted the real of hia 
life. 

"He lived the songs he sung." 



OHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM CHURCHIANIC. 151 

The plodding inductionists of his time pronounced him 
"mad" — mad? — mad as Socrates — mad as Jesus — mad as 
John on Patmos — mad as Spiritualists now are mad. Owing 
to his spiritual exaltation and magical power of communing 
with spirits, despite his finely molded form and character, 
and the felicity of his poetic thought, he was contemptuously 
persecuted by the petty Duke of Ferrara, one of the minions 
of the church, and thrust into a cold prison at Santa Anna. 
Here he was visited by spirits, one of whom he calls Folletto. 

Strange noises and commotions were produced by this 
influence, when his mind was thus wrought up to deep 
feeling and anguish on account of bigoted, envious sectarists; 
" his books were flung down from the shelves, a loaf was 
snatched out of his own hands, and a plate of fruit, which he 
was offering to a Polish youth. ' God knows,' he says, ' that 
I am neither a magician nor a Lutheran, that I never read 
heretical books, nor those which treat of necromancy, nor 
any prohibited art; yet I can neither defend myself from 
thievish men when I am absent, nor demons when I am 
present.' " To soothe his sufferings, he had a vision of the 
Virgin Mary. Through spirit power he was healed, and an 
appreciation of the heavenly intervention, he embodied it in 
sweet song. 

The eminent author, William Howitt, writing of him, 
says : 

"Whether grave or gay, this spirit often came to him, and he often 
held long discourses with it. Manso endeavored to persuade him that 
it was a fancy ; but Tasso maintained that it was as real as themselves, 
a Christian spirit, and which Manso admits gave him great comfort and 
consolation. Tasso, to convince Manso of the reality of this spirit, 
begged him to be present at an interview. Manso says that he saw 
Tasso address himself to some invisible object, listen in return, and 
then reply to what it appeared to have said. He says that the dis- 
courses of Tasso ' were so lofty and marvelous, both by the sublimity 
of their topics and a certain unwonted manner of talking, that, exalted 
above myself into a certain kind of ecstacy, I did not dare to interrupt 
them.' Tasso was disappointed, however, that Manso did not see or 
hear the spirit — which he ought not to have been after what he himself 
tells us, that to see spirits the human eye must be purified, or the spirits 
must array themselves in matter. This is the present acknowledged 



152 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

law in such cases of apparitions. They who see them must be medi- 
ums — that is, have their spiritual eyes open — or the spirits must 
envelop themselves in matter obvious to the outer eye. Tasso did not 
recollect that Manso might not be in the clairvoyant condition in which 
ie himself was ; and Manso, wholly ignorant of these psychological laws, 
;ould only suppose Tasso dealing with a subjective idea. Yet Manso 
(vidently felt the presence of the spirit, for he was raised by it ' into a 
fund of ecstacy,' and he confesses that Tasso's spiritual interviews 
' were more likely to affect his own mind than that he should dissipate 
i'asso's true or imaginary opinion.' " 

The English Church, founded by the voluptuous Henry 
VIII., contains in its homilies sundry statements of the gifts 
,>« the Spirits, of which the following is a sample: 

" The Holy Ghost doth always declare Himself, by His fruitful and 
k facious gifts — namely, by the word of wisdom, by the word of 
knowledge, which is the understanding of the Scriptures ; by faith in 
Ooing of miracles, by healing them that are diseased, by prophecy, 
which is the distribution of God's mysteries; by discerning of spirits, 
diversities of tongues, and so forth. All which gifts, as they proceed 
ft om one Spirit, and are severally given to man according to the 
measurable distribution of the Holy Ghost ; even so do they bring 
ni"n, and not without good cause, into a wonderful admiration of God's 
poorer." 

Lat this only saving element, casually infused into the 
creed from its scriptural pledges of allegiance to the " Word 
of God," was stultified by the transmissible, cancerous poiscn 
of Lutheran origin — "the non-necessity of further miracles." 
A writer, understanding its unspiritual condition, its super- 
ficial religion, appropriately calls it the "Anglican drying- 
house, whose looks and words are of the purest dry-as-dust 
order, capites-mortuum men — of the earth, earthy." 

All religion turns to brass to rust in sepultures, when its 
devotees deny the ministry of angels. It degenerates with 
fashion, grows lecherous with lust, sinks into an ecclesiastic 
night-mare, a kind of churchal delirium tremens, that sees 
only devils in all spiritual phenomena, come to raise ""the 
dead in trespasses and sins." This is the trouble — the 
dead-lock of every church from the Lutheran down to the 
Universalist ! 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM CHURCHIANIC. 153 

Archbishop Cranmer, who stood at the foundation of the 
English Reform Church, did not care to have any warning 
sunlight from spirits, the bare "Word" of a book was 
enough ; so all the rest have thought until " they are wells 
without water." He says, -when a spirit comes to you saying, 
" I am the soul of such a one, give no heed, for it is the 
devil!" He maintains with the general body of starved 
pseudo-Bible sticklers, that God has shut up the way, 
" neither doth he suffer any of the dead to come again hither, 
to tell what is done there, lest by that means he should bring 
in all his heresies and subtleties." 

But even Cranmer found it hard to smother the burning 
fires within. Despite the Lutheran laboratory that trans- 
formed all angels into devils, he too had his private convic- 
tions and spiritual evidences of an order of spirits raised 
above the dominion of his hell. In 1532, being in a contem- 
plative negative condition, a spirit showed him a great blaz- 
ing star. Writing to King Henry from Austria, he says : 
" God only knows what these tokens foretell, for they do not 
lightly appear, but against some great mutation." 

Bishop Latimer, cotemporary of Cranmer, honest and 
warm hearted, fell into the same " Slough of Despond," and 
covered himself with exsiccating mud — the church method 
of embalming clerical mummies. We quote from his 
biographer: 

" And peradventure some one will say, ' How happeneth it that 
there are no miracles done in these days, by such as are preachers of 
the word of God?' I answer, the word of God is already confirmed 
by miracles : partly by Christ himself, and partly by the apostles and 
saints. Therefore, they which now preach the same word need no 
miracles for the confirmation thereof; for the same is sufficiently 
confirmed already." 

But Latimer believed in " substitution^" — a devil for an 
angel — and, sandwiching him in, gave his " satanic majesty " 
the credit of working the miracles of his day ! Well, the 
church has always been consistent with its own plane. But 
even Latimer prophesied correctly on certain occasions. 



154 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

His biographer says, "if ever England bad a prophet, he 
might seem to be one." He prophesied his own death by 
martyrdom. So it is ; men may as well try to bottle up the 
sunlight as the heavenly effulgence of angel ministries. 
"When men attribute the spiritual phenomena to evil spirits, 
or the devil, what do they on their angle of religious 
incidence, but clinch the truth of spirit communication? 

Judicious Hooker, also of the English Church, more judi- 
cious than his famous compeers, more Platonic and Grecianly 
colossal in thought, jumped over the Lutheran "Slough" 
at one bound. A moral lion he whose mane the spirits 
delighted to magnetize. He says : 

" The angels resembled God in their unweariable and even insatiable 
longing to do all manner of good to men by all means." " The pay- 
nims," he says, " had arrived at the same knowledge of the nature of 
angels ; Orpheus confessing that the fiery throne of God is surrounded 
by those most industrious angels, careful bow all things are performed 
amongst men." 

" Angels," says Hooker in another place, " are spirits immaterial and 
intellectual. In number and order they are large, mighty and royal 
armies, desiring good unto all the creatures of God, but especially unto 
the children of men ; in the countenance of whose nature, looking 
downward, they behold themselves beneath themselves; besides which, 
the angels have with us that communion which the Apostle to the 
Hebrews noteth, and in regard whereof they disdain not to profess 
themselves our fellow-servants. And from hence there springeth up 
another law, which bindeth them to works of ministerial employment." 

Bishop Hall, of Norwich, the revered poet, had the moral 
hardihood, like Hooker, to vindicate the use of spiritual gifts 
in the Protestant Church. He is very explicit in his decla- 
rations of spirit communication in tangible forms. His wife 
was pointed out to him by an " angel of God." His mother, 
being prostrated with sickness, had a vision, in which a 
physician appeared and actually healed her ; this he confirms. 
At one time, when journeying to the Netherlands, an angel 
delivered him from the hands of robbers — " the manifest 
hand of God." 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM CHURCHIANIC. 155 

He wrote a valuable work on " The Invisible World," in 
which he maintained that " the spiritual gifts " are perpetual. 
He often invoked the aid of guardian spirits. He felt their 
continued presence, and so was impressed with high purposes 
to "walk carefully but confidently." In his spiritual treatise 
he says : 

" So sure as we see men, so sure we are that holy men have seen 
angels. Have we been raised up," he continues, " from deadly sickness, 
when all natural helps have given us up ? Grod's angels have been our 
secret physicians. Have we had intuitive intimations of the death of 
absent friends, which no human intelligence had bidden us to suspect, 
who but our angels have wrought it ? Have we been preserved from 
mortal danger, which we could not tell how by our providence to have 
evaded, our invisible guardians have done it." 

Archbishop Tillotson, a great light in the English Church, 
confirmed the dark as well as light side of Spiritualism — that 
both evil (undeveloped) and good spirits influence mortals. 
Speaking of the continual intercourse of angels with men for 
their protection and advantage, he says " they are God's great 
ministers here below." 

Bishop Beveridge supports the reality of " ministering 
angels and ministering devils," and that both kinds perform 
miracles ! He advocated the doctrine of seership " by strong 
faith spiritually;" and that spirits "assume a bodily shape." 

Bishop Butler argued the credibility of " miracular 
interpositions." 

Bishop Sherlock, agreeing with Tillotson respecting the 
ministry of both evil and good spirits, discarded the doctrine 
of a stereotyped revelation. He did not believe in thus tying 
up God's hands. He re-asserts, " that the graces of the 
Spirit are the arms of the Christian, with which he is to 
enter the lists against the powers of darkness, and are a 
certain indication to us that God intends to call us to the 
proof and exercise of our virtue ; why else does He give us 
this additional strength ? " 



156 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

These extracts from the writings of the Anglican Fathers, 
are sufficent to indicate that that very fashionable church has 
not entirely smothered the spiritual light under its silks and 
cushions ; but it is also apparent that said church has been 
shy of it, because it threatened to burn up their formulary 
that " miracles are needless." Occupying a middle ground 
between Catholicity, with its hosts of ministering saints, and 
extreme Protestantism that has sealed God's lips within the 
hds of the Bible, and made Jesus the monopolizer of all 
virtue, they were quite willing to have personal private 
seances with the angels as do other good members of 
"respectable churches" to-da} T , but were generally careful 
how they committed themselves before the world. Light 
under a bushel basket is better than no light ; but the basket 
will catch fire one of these days, set by such spirits as Hooker, 
who puts the torch of Freedom into the hands of Colenso and 
Tyng and Bishop Clark. 

Paracelsus, beholding the morning light near Zurich, 
about the commencement of the fifteenth century, was dis- 
tinguished as the founder of the modern science of medicine, 
in connection with the remedial agents of magnetism. He 
understood the reciprocal life-forces — being mediumistic. 
Ennemoser, a great admirer, writes of him thus : 

" Paracelsus was the first who compared this universal reciprocity of 
universal life in all creations, in the great as in the small, with the 
magnet ; so that the word magnetism, in the sense in which we understand 
it, originated with Paracelsus." 

He was considered an enthusiast and spiritual adventurer, 
traveling through Germany, Moravia, Hungary, and other 
European countries. Believing in dreams, forebodings, pre- 
sentiments, prescience, he distinctly taught the presence and 
controlling influence of spirits. In the " Strasburg Edition," 
1603, Paracelsus writes in the following manner of the power 
and operation of the Spirit : 

" It is possible that my spirit, without the help of the body, and 
through a fiery will alone, can wound others. It is also possible that I 



CHURCHAL SPIRIT 0ALI3M — CHURCH IANIC. 157 

can bring the spirit of my adversary into an image, and then double 
him up to his displeasure. Will is a great point ia the art of medicine. 
Man can hang disease on man and beast through curses. * * * * 
Every imagination of man proceeds from the center of his being. This 
is the sun of the microcosm ; and out of the microcosm flows the imag- 
ination into the great world. Thus the imagination of man is a seed, 
which becomes materialized into the outer. * * * * The imag- 
ination of another may be able to kill me. Imagination springing out 
of pleasure and desire, usually acts in concert with the will-power; 
therefore, envy and hatred follow ; for desire is followed by the deed. 
No armor protects against magic, il influences, for they injure the inward 
spirit of life." 

Giordano Bruno, that remarkable Italian inquirer, daring, 
original and spiritualistic, and intimately connected with the 
Paracelsus school of thinkers, was, by the Roman Inquisition, 
arrested and retained in prison two years for spiritual heresy, 
and thence delivered to the Secular Magistrate after the 
usual disgusting formula — " that he be dealt with as merci- 
fully as possible, and punished without effusion of blood." 
Bruno exclaimed — " Your sentence strikes more terror into 
your own hearts than mine ? " and he died as a brave man 
ought. 

Jerome Cardamus, sixteenth century, the companion of 
Paracelsus, ranking among the first scholars of his age, a 
favorite at royal courts, divinely illumined, was very reliable 
in mediumship. When a child, he spiritually saw groves, 
landscapes, orbs, " without any previous volition or antici- 
pation that such things were about to happen." He could 
not recollect any event, good or ill, occurring in life, of 
which he was not previously admonished either in dream or 
vision. He spoke with great emphasis of having a genius or 
demon perpetually attending him, advising as to what would 
happen, and forewarning him of danger. Studying astrology, 
he calculated the nativity of King Edward VI., of Jesus 
Christ, predicted the time of his own death, which took 
place in the 75th year of his age, fulfilling his prediction. 

Joan d'Arc, the humble shepherd girl of Domremy, was 
the political savior of France. Bethlehem's shepherds were 



158 . DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. ' 

not more honored by the Church Fathers than this sunny- 
souled, spiritually illuminated girl by later mystics. No 
history is better authenticated than that which relates to her 
visions, prophecies and angelic communings. As if the very 
leaves of her favorite tree, under which she so often sat, rapt 
in heavenly reverie, had tongues, she heard angel voices 
announcing her future mission. Again and again they 
called with imperative command; and, at length, inspired 
with the enthusiasm of patriotic fulness, she meekly and 
trustfully obeyed. Orleans was besieged ! England's reign- 
ing monarch was expectantly waiting to snatch the crown of 
France ! Spirit-guided, she mounted the war-steed, unfurled 
her talismanic banner, thrilled the French soldiers with 
unconquerable daring to gain a glorious victory. 

Immortal in history, artists delighted to transfer her form 
to the canvas ; Schiller and Southey honored her in poesy 
and song ; defeating the phlegmatic English, they burned 
her for a witch ! 

Jacob Bcehmen, of the sixteenth century, surnamed Teu- 
tonicus, and known in history as the " German Mystic," or 
" Theosophic Enthusiast," was a native of Old Seidenburgh, 
near Goritz. When a shoemaker in his master's shop, he was 
visited by a stranger of a venerable aspect, who, departing 
from the place, exclaimed with a loud voice — "Jacob! 
Jacob ! come forth ! " The lad was astonished to be called 
by his Christian name. The spirit-guided personage then 
taking him by the hand, said, " Jacob, thou art little, but 
shalt be great, and become another man, at whom the world 
shall wonder. * * * * Thou must endure much misery 
and poverty, and suffer persecution ; but be encouraged, and 
persevere, for God loves and is gracious to thee." 

These words produced a burning impression upon his 
mind. He felt the power of the commission to unfold the 
mysteries of the Apocalypse and the inner sense of the 
"Divine Word." He became a voluminous writer, suffered 
persecution for his innovating thought, blessed all the world 



CHUacilAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 159 

with brighter light, and finally was summoned to Dresden 
to answer to the charge of heresy. After a tortuous trial, he 
was honorably dismissed. 

Speaking of himself, he says : " After the gates of spiritual 
knowledge were opened to me, I was compelled to commence 
working at this (book) like a child that goes to school. In the 
interim, I certainly saw the truth as it were at a great depth. 
* * * * From time to time it opened to me like a plant, 
but it was twelve years before I could bring it out." 

Dr. Hamberger says, introductorily to his manuscripts : 
" The author wrote with divine inspiration from living con- 
templation ; but it cost him hard battles, and it was not 
always possible to reduce what he saw into words and ideas." 
Like illiterate clairvoyants and visionists of the present, he 
found it difficult to classify and develop his revelations to the 
comprehension of practical thinkers. 

Bcekmen passed to the Summer Land, Nov. 18, 1624. 
Early in the morning he called his loved son to his side, and 
asked if he heard that excellent music ! Receiving a reply 
in the negative, he directed him to open the door that he 
might hear it better. Asking, afterward, "what the hour?" 
he was told " two" — upon which he remarked that his time 
was " yet three hours hence." When it was near six o'clock, 
blessing his wife and son, he took leave of them, saying, 
" Now I go hence into Paradise ! " He then bade his son 
turn him, and with a deep peaceful sigh, his sweet spirit 
departed. 

Raphael, speaking of his paintings, conscious of inspira- 
tions, says his " whole work is accomplished as it were in a 
pleasant dream ! " 

Dannecker, the German sculptor, said he " obtained his 
idea of Christ in a dream — spiritually impressed — after failing 
to realize it in his waking hours." 

Lord Bacon, the master thinker, the religious philosopher, 
whose wisdom flashes in all our literature, was a clear headed, 



160 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

devout Spiritualist. "We respectfully ask the soi-distant 
scientists of the clerical orders to reject Lord Bacon from 
the list of " authorities," or else respect his teachings, of 
which the following extracts from his works are samples. 
In his preface to his " Great Instauration" he prays that — 

" What is human may not clash with what is divine ; and that when 
the ways of the senses are opened, and a greater natural light set up in 
the mind, nothing of incredulity and blindness towards divine mysteries 
may arise ; but rather that the understanding now cleared up, and 
purged of all vanity and superstition, may remain entirely subject to 
the divine oracles, and yield to faith the things that are faith's." (Bonn's 
Edition, preface, p. 9.) 

Again he says : 

" As to the nature of spirits and angels, this is neither unsearchable 
nor forbid, but in a great part level to the human mind, on account of 
their affinity. We are, indeed, forbid in Scripture to worship angels, 
or to entertain fantastical opinions of them so as to exalt them above 
the degree of creatures, or think of them higher than we have reason ; 
but the sober inquiry about them, which either ascends to a knowledge 
of their nature by the scale of corporeal beings, or views them in the 
mind, as in a glass, is by no means foolish. The same is to be under- 
stood of revolted or unclean spirits ; conversation with them, or using 
their assistance, is unlawful ; and much more in any manner to worship 
or adore them ; but the contemplation and knowledge of their nature, 
power and illusions, appears from Scripture, reason and experience, to 
be no small part of spiritual wisdom. Thus says the apostle, ' Strat- 
egematum ejus non ignari sumus ' (2 Cor. ii. 11). And thus it is as 
lawful ia natural theology to investigate the nature of evil spirits, as the 
nature of poisons in physics, or the nature of vice in morality." 
("Advancement of Learning," 121-2). 

Sir Thomas Browne, who lived about half a century after 
Bacon, one of the ablest thinkers of his age, and an open 
advocate of Spiritualism, says, in his " Keligio Medici " : 

'• Those that, to confute their incredulity, desire to see apparitions, 
shall questionless never behold any. The devil hath them already in a 
heresy as capital, as witchcraft, and to appear to them were but to 
convert them." 

An admirer of Paracelsus, he adds : " Our good angels 
reveal many things to those who seek into the works of 
nature." 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANTC. 161 

Schiller, an inspirational poet, intimates that his ideas 
were not his own — "that they flowed in upon him so rapidly 
and powerfully, his only difficulty was to seize them and 
write them down fast enough." 

George Fox, sainted and sable clad, charged with the 
magnetic lightnings of heaven, caused the church steeples 
of England to tremble as cedars of Lebanon before Syrian 
winds. His inspirations have streamed down to the present, 
giving him, in the estimation of the appreciative, an almost 
apostolic sanctity. His spiritual experiences, his power to 
read souls, his prescience, his healing gifts, and his obedience 
to "the still, small voice," all rank him one of the first in 
the angelic phalanx of mediumship. In his " Works " we 
find the following facts. Entering the city of Litchfield, 
under spirit control, he had the experiences of a genuine 
prophet : 

" Then I was commanded of the Lord to pull off my shoes. I stood 
still, for it was winter ; and the word of the Lord was like a fire unto 
me. 

" Then I walked about a mile, and as soon as I got within the city, 
the word of the Lord came unto me — ' Cry, wo to the bloody city of 
Litchfield ! ' 

",So I went up and down the streets and into the market-place, and 
cried, ' Wo to the bloody city of Litchfield ! ' 

" As I went, there seemed to be a channel of blood through the 
streets. 

" When I had declared what was upon me, and felt myself at peace, 
I went out of the town. Afterward I came to understand that in the 
Emperor Dioclesian's time a thousand Christians were martyred there. 

" So the sense of their blood was upon me, and I obeyed the word of 
the Lord. 

" At Ulverstone, at the home of Margaret Fell, a woman of high 
repute, when asked to go to a church to speak, he walked in the field 
and the word came, ' Gro to the steeple-house.' " 

Though such experiences are common with the media of 
our day, the conservative followers of George Pox discard 
them, indicating the unspiritual tendency of that sect. 
11 



162 - DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

On another occasion, he said: 

" I went to a meeting at Arnside, where Richard Myers was, who had 
been a long time lame of one arm. I was moved of the Lord to say to 
him amongst all the people, ' Stand upon thy legs.' And he stood up 
and stretched out his arm and said, ' Be it known unto you, all people, 
that this day I am healed.' 

" He came soon after to Swartmore meeting and declared how the 
Lord had healed him. 

" The Lord hath given me a spirit of discerning, by which I many 
times saw the states and conditions of people, and could try their 
spirits." 

Why cannot the declining sect of the Quakers recognize 
the marvelous beauty of that spiritual power manifest in our 
midst to-day, as well as that which has flowed in broken 
currents of inspiration, tinged with the theological idiosyn- 
cracies of intervening centuries ? 

Lucas Jacobson Debes, of Denmark, a personage in his 
day of religious authority, published a book in 1667, in which 
he relates an instance of angelic visitation to Jacob Ollusson, 
being then at Giow. "We quote the language of this reliable 
author: "On the fourteenth day of his illness, as he lay 
asleep at night, there came one to him with shining clothes 
on, whereat he awoke, and perceived him (the angel) by him 
in that figure, the room appearing full of splendor; and it 
asked the man where his pain was. Whereunto he answered 
nothing. Afterward the angel stroked him with his hand 
along his breast, and round about ; whereby he was perfectly 
healed." 

This testimony bears the unmistakable marks of truthful- 
ness, beautifully illustrative of the curative agencies of spirits 
by the manipulations of the hand direct or indirect by 
mediation. 

Richard Baxter, in his " Historical Discourse on Appari- 
tions and Witches," writes an account of an acquaintance of 
his, " a gentleman of considerable rank," who, addicted to 
intemperance, was always visited by a spirit immediately 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 168 

after " he had slept himself sober," warning him of his vice 
by rapping on his head-board, and other visible signs of 
heavenly guardianship and discipline. Mr. Baxter, having 
seen the man, and besought him to reform, believing the 
spirit presence to have been genuine, conscientiously and 
feelingly asked, " Do good spirits dwell so near us ? or, Are 
they sent on such messages ? or, Is it his guardian angel ? " 

Walton, the celebrated, in his biography of the learned 
Dr. Donne, in King James' time, after giving remarkable 
tests of spirit influences and revelations, illustrates the law 
of spiritual sympathy, whereby a spirit can impress a medi- 
umistic mind, by the use of musical instruments. Contend- 
ing that visions and miracles have not ceased, he says : " It 
is most certain that two lutes, being both strung and tuned 
to an equal pitch, the one played upon, and the other not 
touched, but laid upon a table, at a fit distance, will, like an 
echo to a trumpet, warble a faint, audible harmony in answer 
to the same tune. Yet many will not believe that there is 
such a thing as sympathy with souls ! " 

John Aubrey, a distinguished antiquarian., published, in 
1695, a book of " Miscellanies," in which, bringing King 
James as witness, he speaks of a haunted house whose super- 
intending spirit was a faithful " rough man." He parallels 
certain phases of modern psychological influences where the 
spirit, planed to the earthly, caused the " seer " to " swear, 
tremble and screech." He recommended the ministry always 
to intervene in cases of spirit control and " exorcise the 
ghost." Exorcism, philosophically speaking, consists in 
bringing a stronger magnetic power to bear upon the 
subject, scattering and dissipating the previously adjusted 
spirit- forces. The moral peril of such interferences among 
ignorant, unspiritual clergy, is, that when "the house is swept 
and garnished," the dispossessed spirit, forced away, returns, 
at the first opportunity, with seven other spirits worse than 
himself, and " the last state of that man is worse than the 



164 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

first." Force repels force; hate begets hate; but the only 
subduing, saving power in the universe, is wisely disciplined 
love. 

The Scotch repeatedly aver that infants are seers — a fact 
demonstrated by our own observation. How beautifully the 
legend of our Aboriginees chimes in with the Highlander's 
happy gift ! The Indians — nature's children — tell us when 
the innocent babe, cribbed in its willow basket, looks out 
into seeming vacancy and smiles, its grandmother has come 
from the " hunting grounds " to greet it. 

The rustic people, especially the Highlanders, of Scotland, 
have ever been celebrated for their gifts of " Second Sight " 
— clairvoyance. As gardens and flowers tend to the culti- 
vation of the beautiful, so mountainous regions to the 
development of the spiritual. 

The Scotch historians also testify to what is apparent in 
the modern phenomena, that this so-called " strange gift " 
does not depend upon moral character, but upon organization. 
They assert that certain beasts are seers — horses especially. 
An instance of this kind occurred in the Isle of Skye, where 
a horse discerned a spirit at the same time with his rider, 
and was frightened. This statement is not without its 
historic support. Paracelsus informs us that horses, and 
even dogs, have their " auguries." Our good churchmen 
will not surely discredit testimony like this, since they do 
believe that Balaam's beast " saw the Angel of the Lord 
standing in the way, with a drawn sword in his hand. * * * 
And the Lord opened the mouth of the beast, and she said 
rin to Balaam, i What have I done unto thee, that thou hast 
smitten me these three times ? ' " That an angel spoke to 
Balaam through a beast, is very acceptable in church circles ; 
but that our spirit friends impress, inspire, and speak through 
human lips, is blasphemous ! 

John Knox, the fierce reformer of Scotland, who knocked 
down steeples and popish mummeries, and who, in his stern- 
ness, after the pattern of Luther, stripped religion of the 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM CHURCHIANIC. 165 

"beautiful and gay, theoretically denying the perpetuity of 
revelations fresh from the divine fountain, had an expe- 
rience with spirits convicting him of their direct ministry, 
though he studiously avoided any very public avowal of 
them. Very Protestant, sure. He avows his belief, however, 
though with precaution, lest his course might be construed 
by Catholics as inconsistent with his precept. He was a 
powerful medium, and under the inner light that flamed in 
his soul, he said : 

"I dare not deny, lest I be injurious to the giver, that Grod hath 
revealed unto me secrets unknown to the world; yea, certain great 
revelations of mutations and changes where no such things were feared, 
nor yet were appearing. Notwithstanding these revelations I did 
abstain to commit anything to writing, contented only to have obeyed 
the charge of Him who commanded me to cry." 

The New England Witchcraft, that, to this day, casts a 
lurid light over puritanical history, was a species of psycho- 
logical epidemic, wherein the magnetisms of both worlds, 
owing to the prevalence of false ideas touching spiritual laws, 
were inharmoniously adjusted to the development of moral 
truth. Spirits, not infallible, evidently endeavored at this 
period to establish an open communication between the 
inhabitants of this and the spirit-world; but ignorance was 
too deep, clerical influence too potent. Priests, basing their 
authority on the Mosaic teaching — " Thou shalt not suffer a 
witch to live " — were instrumental in murdering the media. 
The experiment a partial failure, the immortals withdrew 
their forces, waiting a more auspicious era. 

Cotton Mather, regarded as good authority, furnished a 
compendium of mediumistic control. In 1662, Anne Cole, 
" a person of serious piety, living in the house of her godly 
father, at Hartford, was taken with strange fits " — trances — 
and caused to express " strange things unknown to herself, 
her tongue being guided by a demon." Confessing to the 
" ministers," that she had " familiarity with the devil " — 
spirit presences — " the woman was executed ! " 



166 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

The " physical phenomena " of those perilous days bore a 
striking resemblance to those of the present — such as haunted 
houses, raising of bodies, noises, trances, clairvoyance, clair- 
audience and prophecies. The case of the unfortunate Anne 
Cole was but one among hundreds and tens of thousands 
who, in this country and Europe, were arraigned, tried and 
executed for witchcraft ! 

Had the clergy not sought to divorce reason from religion 
— mental science from religion — common sense from reli- 
gion — with an eye to the " glory of God," as revealed 
through Hebrew goggles, this murderous mania, instigated 
by priestcraft, would not have stained with blood the historic 
page. 

William Blake — artist, poet, idealist — oh, for adequate 
words to sing thy praises ! Walking among men, men knew 
thee not ; but angels knew thee, and the richest gold of thy 
soul which shines now the brighter for the ordeals of 
thy trials ! So completely did he live in the ideal world, 
which he w T ove around him as a garment of glory — so con- 
stantly did he look thro' it into the inner life, that external 
things became as passing dreams. A seer by birth, he 
discerned the innermost, and reveled enraptured in what 
cold plodders called " imagination." An English author, 
criticising Blake's life by Alex. Gilchrist, says : 

"The attempt to do more than accept the subjective reality of the 
visions, rested solely upon the ground of their confidence in Blake's 
veracity. Thus he would say, ' I saw Socrates to-day; he said to me 
thus and thus.' 

" The visionary (spirit) heads which Blake drew in the company of 
John Varley furnish an example to the point. The remarkable pro- 
ductions were professedly copies of what Blake at the moment saw. He 
would see King Edward I., and looking up now and then, with most 
perfect composure, at his imaginary sitter, would draw his portrait. 
Varley, who had faith in Blake's power of vision and also in Blake's 
doctrine that it was a universal gift, sat beside him, and, since he made 
some profession to a spiritual sight, being an astrologer in his way, 
looked wistfully in the direction to which Blake's eyes pointed, in 
earnest hope of seeing the same sight. He was honest and looked as 
hard as he could, but his honesty compelled him to confess that he saw 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 167 

no king before his eyes. Blake held that he drew what he saw, and 
inasmuch as he saw angels more distinctly than some artists seem to see 
men, he drew them boldly, gave them something to exist in, instead of 
adopting a common trick, and trying to conceal a fearful absence of 
body by an unmistakable presence of clothing. 

" There is a subtle element in Blake's poetry, disengaging one from 
objects of sense and leading the enchanted spirit on a far journey, A 
similar power in different form appears in certain poems of Coleridge, 
which was heightened, if we are to believe his cotemporaries, by the 
recital of the poet. The entranced listeners might float with Coleridge 
to Xanadu, to get back as they could at the unfortunate end of the 
poet's vocal journey, while he traveled on by himself, whither no one 
but himself could tell, and whither, alas ! he has failed to tell us. It 
is related by his biographer, that Blake used to sing his songs to music 
which he had composed, but which never was written down. What 
angelic melody it ought to have been ! " 

This eminent Spiritualist was born in 1757, and lived 
uninterruptedly in London, except three years in Chichester, 
to fulfill an engagement with Haley, Cowper's biographer. 

We pour over the productions of Blake's genius, wonder- 
ing, delighted, awed, and inquire of ourselves, Who is this 
man, that had so little in common with earth ? — who paints 
his pictures ? — who sings his songs ? Of himself he would 
say: 

" I live in a hole here, but Grod has a beautiful mansion for me 
elsewhere. * * ***** 

" I am not ashamed, afraid, or averse to tell you — what ought to be 
told — that I am under the direction of messengers from heaven, daily 
and nightly. But the nature of such things is not, as some suppose, 
without trouble or care. Temptations are on the right hand and on 
the left. Behind, the sea of time, and space roars and follows swiftly. 
He who keeps not right onward is lost ; and if our footsteps slide in 
clay, what can we do otherwise than fear and tremble ! * * * If 
we fear to do the dictates of our angels, and tremble at the tasks set 
before us ; if we refuse to do spiritual acts because of natural fears or 
natural desires ; who can describe the dismal torments of such a state ! 
I too well remember the threats I heard : ' If you, who are organized 
by Divine Providence for spiritual communion, refuse, and bury your 
talent in the earth, even though you should want natural bread — sor- 
row and desperation pursue you through life, and after death shame 
and confusion of face. Every one in eternity will leave you, aghast at 
the man who was crowned with glory and honor by his brethren and 



168 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

betrayed their cause to their enemies. You will be called the base 
Judas who betrayed his friend ! ' Such words would make any stout 
man tremble,. and how then could I be at ease? But I am now no 
longer in that state, and now go on again with my task, fearless, 
though my path is difficult. I have no fear of stumbling while I 
keep it." 

Louis XVI. , benevolent and reformatory, has been styled 
" noblest of all the reigning Bourbons." " Coming to his 
own, his own received him not." Arraigned, tried by a 
boisterous assembly, he was heartlessly condemned to the 
block. Seeing the courier sent to inform him of his fate, he 
exclaimed — " I know it all ! I know it all ! Last night I 
saw a female form clothed in stainless white, walking these 
solitary apartments. "When the reigning powers of the throne 
behold a vision of this character, they know that prince or 
king is to be dethroned and slain. Tell my accusers to 
prepare to meet me in the land of the just! " 

•Maria Antoinette — fated child of imperial destiny ! Never 
was mother more proud than Maria Theresa, on the eve of 
her daughter's marriage. Before her glittered the first throne 
of Europe, to be shared by a successor of St. Louis. Night 
resting upon Vienna, the church festival over, the benedic- 
tion pronounced, the empress retires to her chamber, but 
,not to sleep. Speaking to the waiting-woman, she inquires 
who is there? 

"A stranger; he has been seeking your presence a full 
hour." 

The waiting-woman leaving, soon returned, and ushered 
in an elderly man dressed in black. This is Dr. Gassner, 
one of those men who, about the year 1770, were scattered 
throughout Europe — a Cagliostro, or St. Germain — perform- 
ing cures by the laying on of hands, seeing visions, indulg- 
ing in prophecies and inspirations. " His relations to the 
spiritual world had brought him in conflict with various 
ecclesiastical princes, until he found refuge at the court of 
Maria Theresa, for the empress had a love for the mysterious. 



, CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIAKIC. 1G9 

She had frequent interviews with the wonderful man; to-day 
she wished for a grave proof of his higher knowledge." 

The Doctor, placing his hand upon the shoulder of the 
empress, said slowly, in a hollow voice, "Your majesty, the 
noble shoulders of Maria Antoinette are destined to bear a 
heavy cross." 

Maria Antoinette, spiritually impressed, as the carriage 
rolled away, exclaimed, " I shall never see Vienna again ! " 
and cried aloud, " Maria Theresa! Maria Theresa!" 

During the Revolution, often thinking of the Doctor's 
prophetic words, she believed herself destined to a tragical 
fate. Upon the scaffold, with a true womanly bravery, she 
uttered these words : " Farewell, my children, I go to your 
father. * * * * We shall return to you as guardian 
angels. Trust in God ! " 

Madame Elizabeth, sweetest soul of France, sister of 
Louis XVI., angel of his household during his trials and 
translation to the Isles of the Blest, shed a silvery radiance 
over the royal family and the entire kingdom. Full of 
divine forgiveness and pious enthusiasm, she was intromitted 
through the gateway of dreams and visions, into the society 
of spirits. Though a princess and heir apparent to the 
throne of the Bourbons, she was so guileless and affectional 
in her nature, that she daily walked and talked with angels. 

"Every sentence, oh, how tender! 
Every line was full of love." 

Like Cecilia, the Catholic martyr, doomed also to fall to 
" low ambition and the pride of kings," so beautiful was she 
in form, so harmonious and musical in spirit, she drew the 
angels down to see her, and " eyes were turned to ears." 

Josephine, the arbitress of Napoleon's destiny, who 
prophesied his star would set when his ambition sundered 
the love-chord that furnished him with inspirational power 
from her own heart, not only accepted faith in guardian 
angels, but actualized it with the beguiling Houris in night 



170 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

visions and day-dreams of the spiritual. She gives the 
following account of an interview with Euphemia, a magician 
of her native isle : 

" The old sibyl, on beholding me, uttered a loud exclamation, and 
almost by force seized my hand. She appeared to be under the greatest 
agitation. Amused at these absurdities, as I thought them, I allowed 
her to proceed, saying, ' So you discover something extraordinary in my 
destiny ? ' ' Yes.' ' Is happiness or misfortune to be my lot ? ' Mis- 
fortune : ah, stop ! — and happiness, too.' ' You take care not to commit 
yourself, my good dame ; your oracles are not the most intelligible.' ' I 
am not permitted to render them more clear,' said the woman, raising 
her eyes with a mysterious expression toward heaven. ' But to the 
point,' replied I, for my curiosity began to be excited ; ' what read you 
concerning me in futurity ? ' ' What do I see in the future ? You 
will not believe me if I speak.' ' Yes, indeed, I assure you. Come, 
my good mother, what am I to fear and hope ? ' ' On 3-our head be it 
then ; listen : you will be married soon; that union will not be happy; 
you will become a widow, and then— then you will be Queen of France ! 
Some happy years will be yours ; but you will die in a hospital, amid 
civil commotions.' " 

Mozart, the great musical genius of his age, speaking of 
his inspirational moments, when melodies fell unhidden upon 
his soul, said : " All my feelings and composition go on 
within me only as a lively and delightful dream." 

He gave a further account of receiving his masterly pro- 
ductions from the rythmic sphere of spiritual harmonies in 
the following language : 

" When all goes well with me — when I am in a carriage, or walking, 
or when I cannot sleep at night, the thoughts come streaming in upon 
me most fluently ; whence, or how is more than I can tell. Then 
follow the counterpoint — and the clang of the different instruments ; 
and, if I am not disturbed, my soul is fixed, and the thing grows 
greater, and broader, and clearer ; and I have it all in my head, even 
when the piece is a long one ; and I see it like a beautiful picture — not 
hearing the different parts in succession, as they must be played, but 
the whole at once. That is the delight ! The composing and making 
is like a beautiful and vivid dream ; but this hedriny of it is the best 
of all." 

These are fine examples of inspirational influx and 
clairaudience. 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 171 

When, in his last days, quietly approaching the summer 
shore of heaven, being composed and calm, some friend of 
his passing through the room, he exclaimed — "Listen! 
listen ! I hear music ! " His friend said, " I hear nothing." 
Mozart paused with rapture beaming on his sallow face, 
averring that he heard music, and quoted the testimony of 
John with a sweet trust that plumed his spirit-wings for a 
better flight — 

"And I heard music in heaven." 

Having finished the " Requiem," his soul filled with inspi- 
rations of richest melody, and already claiming kindred with 
immortals, giving it its last touch, the " cygnean strain " 
which was to consecrate it through all time, and then falling 
into a gentle slumber, during which his ministering angel 
enrapt his soul in the glory forecast from the land of song, 
he awoke at the light footstep of his daughter Ernelie, and 
called her to him — " Come hither, my Emelie — my task is 
done — the Requiem — my Requiem is finished ! " At his 
earnest request she sung it, commencing — 

" Spirit! thy labor is o'er ! 

Thy term of probation is run, 
Thy steps are now bound for the untrodden shore, 
And the race of immortals begun." 

" As she concluded, she dwelt for a moment on the low 
melancholy notes of the piece, and then turned from the 
instrument to meet the approving smile of her father. It 
was the still, passionless smile which the rapt and departed 
spirit left upon the features." 

BEETnovEN whose soul was toned to musical ecstacy, con- 
fessed to an overmastering power, the rythmic harmonies of 
angels. In his own words, music was to him a higher reve- 
lation than all the artificial philosophy of the world. Hear 
his inspiring language : " I must live with myself alone. I 
well know that God and angels are nearer to me in my art 
than the others. I commune with them without dread. 



172 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Music is the only unembodied entrance into a higher sphere 
of knowledge which possesses man." After some of the 
sweetest utterances, he would exclaim — "I've had a 
rapture ! " Goethe, in speakiDg of him, terms him a 
"demon-possessed person," and adds, "it would be mis- 
chievous to advise him, because his genius continually 
inspires him." 

Goethe, rare soul of poetry and song, whose ante-natal 
tendencies were spiritual, and whose physical perfection 
justly entitled him to a comparison with Apollo, was heralded 
into earth-life by wierd dreams of future greatness. If it is 
true that all poets are prophets, it is equally true that genuine 
poets are Spiritualists. To him a friend said, " Thou livest 
among spirits ; they give thee divine wisdom ; " and he said 
of himself, " I should hold myself assured of the gift of 
prophecy belonging of old to my family." He considered 
himself born under favorable stars, and is reported to have 
said to his mother at seven years of age, " The stars will not 
forget me, but will keep the promise made over my cradle." 
At the death of a playmate he did not shed a tear, but said 
" he had gone to dwell in the fairy world before him." 

Swedenborg, the mystic and Christian philosopher, of 
Sweden, flourishing in the seventeenth century, was of noble 
birth, scholarly in attainments, material in his scientific 
pursuits, theistic in his religious tendencies, and, up to the 
fifty-fifth year of his age, was a traveler, extensive author and 
man of the world, a guest at royal courts, and of high repute 
in literary circles. About this period of his life, a startling 
development of mental conditions blossomed out, opening to 
his inner vision the spirit world. He had impressions, 
dreams, visions; conversed with spirits — heard them — saw 
them — walked with them — reasoned with them ; and was so 
conscious of their presence, that the geography of their homes 
became as familiar as his own native land. 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 173 

His mediumship lias been seldom excelled. In its begin- 
ning, as is the general rule, it was exceedingly disorderly, 
and, in some respects, quite as disgusting as certain phases of 
" modern manifestations " are to the church. We select the 
following, as a few among the many facts, corroborative of 
this statement, extracted from William White's two London 
volumes of the " Life and Writings of Swedenborg." These 
are based upon the testimonies of Kev. Aaron Mathesius — a 
Swedish minister and Chaplain to the Embassy in 1773 — Dr. 
Smith, Brockmer, John Wesley, Rev. Francis Okeley, a 
Moravian preacher, and others. Though Mathesius and 
Swedenborg were antipodal in friendship, the testimony of 
the former is admitted as valid by Mr. Okeley, who, writing 
of Mathesius' story as published by Wesley, remarks : 

i: ' There is no denying that in the year 1743 (1744). when Sweden- 
borg was first (as he said) introduced into the Spiritual World, he was 
for a while insane. He then lived with Mr. Brockmer, as Mr. J. 
Wesley has published in his Arminian Magazine for January, 1781. * 
* * * As I rather suspect J. W.'s narratives, they being always 
warped to his own inclination, I inquired of Mr. Brockmer concerning 
it, and found all the main lines of it truth.' 

This may be considered conclusive in favor of the truth- 
fulness of Mathesius. 



" ' Many years ago the Baron came over to England, and lodged at 
one Mr. Brockmer's , who informed me (and the same information was 
given me by Mr. Mathesius, a very serious Swedish clergyman, both 
of whom were alive when I left London, and, I suppose, are so still), 
that while he was in his house he had a violent fever ; in the height of 
which, being totally delirious, he broke from Mr. Brockmer, ran into 
the street stark naked, proclaimed himself the Messiah, and rolled 
himself in the mire. 

>(c % ^ sfs ^j ;(< ^; 

" This was about nine in the evening. Leaving his door and going 
up stairs, he rushed up after me, making a fearful appearance. His 
hair stood upright, and he foamed round the mouth. He tried to speak, 
but could not utter his thoughts, stammering long before he could get 
out a word. 

" At last he said, that he had something to confide to me privately, 
namely, that he was Messiah, that he was come to be crucified for the 



174 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Jews, and that I (since he spoke with difficulty) should be spokesman, 
and go with him to-morrow to the Synagogue, there to preach his 
words. 

" Whilst I was with Dr. Smith. Mr. Swedenborg went to the Swedish 
Envoy, but was not admitted, it being post-day. Departing thence he 
pulled off his clothes and rolled himself in very deep mud in the gutter. 
Then he distributed money from his pockets among the crowd which had 
gathered. 

" In this state some of the footmen of the Swedish Envoy chanced to 
see him, and brought him to me very foul with dirt." 

These well substantiated facts indicate the naturalness of 
those mental and psychological changes, incident to nearly all 
media in their growth from the grosser material to the more 
spiritual and harmonial planes of life. Carlyle, speaking of 
similar experiences, says : " Such transitions are ever full of 
pain : thus the eagle when he moults is sickly; and, to attain 
his new beak, must harshly dash off the old one upon the 
rocks." 

In common with all the churches, the present followers of 
Swedenborg flippantly berate Spiritualists, especially the 
mediums in their earlier stages of development, on the 
ground of " demoniac possessions." It is as amusing as 
pitiable to witness the holy sneer that plays upon the scorn- 
curled lips of the crystalized Swedenborgian, who, with 
unwarrantable assumption, shrugs his shoulders and breathes 
in manner, if not in words — " Stand by, I am holier than 
thou ! " 

Looking at him in after years, when chaos had rounded 
into symmetrical form, and disorderly mediumship had 
flowed out into beautiful harmony and sweetness of heavenly 
trust, he challenges our profoundest admiration. The symbol 
key held in his hand, he opened the mysteries of the heavens 
— the "Word" being to him a link of correspondential 
thoughts and ideas imaging eternal things. Gazing as 
through an angel microscope, and reading the soul of 
things, all the universe spread itself before him rightly inter- 
preted — the material being the type of the spiritual — its 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM CHURCHIANIC. 175 

body — and all objects the representations of mental and 
moral conditions. 

Manger the chronic church notions of his time, his doc- 
trines and experiences agree with those of modern Spirit- 
ualists. In his Spiritual Diary, 4602, he affirms — 

" That there is an influx from the spiritual world into the natural 
world, and that the natural world thence subsists, as from it it began to 
exist, is at the present day utterly unknown ; because it is not known 
what the spiritual is, neither do men wish to know anything but what is 
natural, wherefore they deny anything else, especially the learned. Man 
was created to be a type of either world ; his interiors to be a type of the 
spiritual world, and his exteriors to be a type of the natural world, to the 
end that in him both might be conjoined. Hence it is that his natural 
world, or microcosm, does not live except by influx from the spiritual 
world, and that there is, with many, a continual conatus to the union of 
both worlds in him." 

He taught that the spiritual is the real man, and dwelt 
largely upon the substantiality of the spirit world as a realm 
of groves and gardens, seas and mountains, forests and birds, 
and nationalities of immortal men and women, having habits, 
affectious and aspirations similar to those they cherished in 
the earth life. There the scholar pursues his studies, the 
poet courts diviner muses, the geologist probes newly formed 
orbs, the mathematician calculates immeasurable distances, 
the -orator discourses in lofty strains of eloquence to assem- 
bled multitudes, the astronomer counts distant stars and 
resolves nebulae into revolving systems of suns and planets, 
and the reformer who once walked the earth with bleeding 
feet, now crowned in the heavens, descends to revolutionize 
and further consummate the world's emancipation. 

In a vision he foresaw his transition, and, full of rest, 
departed at the time, in confirmation .of his own prophecy. 

Thomas Sat, member of the Friends' Church, was esteemed 
for his great piety, blameless life, and sincerity of soul. A 
compilation of his writings and manuscripts were published 
in Philadelphia, 1796, by Budd and Bartram. Gifted as a 
speaker, his mediumship assumed the forms of trance and 
healing. 



176 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

His biographer, affirming that he " could cure wens, remove 
tumors, and other afflictive diseases, by stroking with the 
hand," says, that " however some might ridicule this, it was 
a fact, in proof of which many living testimonies could be 
produced." Fastings and secret prayer ever proved effica- 
cious in opening his inner sight, enabling him to behold with 
rapturous joy the marvelous glories of the heavenly world. 
"We transfer one of his spiritual experiences to these pages. 

" On the ninth day, between the hours of four and five. I fell into a 
trance, and so continued till about the hour of three or four the next 
morning. After my departure from the body (for I left the body'), my 
father and mother, Susannah Robinson and others who watched me, 
shook my body, felt for my pulse, and tried if they could discern the 
remains of any life or breath in me, but found none. Some may be 
desirous to know whether I was laid out or not. 

" I found myself, when I opened my eyes, lying on my back, as is a 
corpse on a board ; and was told after getting better, that I was not laid 
on a board, because mother could not find freedom to have it done. 
They then sent for Dr. Kearsly, who attended me, for his opinion. He 
found no pulse nor any remains of life; but as he was going away, 
returned again, and said that something came into his mind to try 
further. He then asked for a small looking-glass, which Catharine 
Souder, who lived with my father, procured. The doctor placing it 
over my mouth, a short time there appeared on it a little moisture. The 
doctor then said to them, if he is not dead I think he is so far gone he 
will never open his eyes again ; let him lie while he continues warm, 
and when he begins to grow cold, lay him out. 

" This they told me when I returned into the body. Upon hearing 
me speak, they were all very much surprised; the second time I spoke 
they all rose from their chairs, and the third time they all came to me 
My father and mother inquired how it had been with me ? I answered, 
and said unto them, I thought I had been dead and gone to heaven. 
After I left my body I heard, as it were, the voices of men, women and 
children singing songs of praises unto the Lord God, without inter- 
mission,' which ravished my soul and threw me into transports of joy. 
My soul was also delighted with most beautiful glades and gardens, 
which appeared to me on every side, and such as were never seen in 
this world. Through these I passed, being all clothed in white, and in 
my full shape without the least diminution of parts. As I passed along 
toward a higher state of bliss, I cast my eyes (being perfectly conscious) 
upon the earth, which I saw plainly, and beheld three men (whom I 
knew) die. Two of them were white men, one of which entered into 
immediate rest. There appeared a beautiful transparent gate opened ; 
and as I with the one that entered into rest came up to it, he stepped 
in ; but as I was about to enter, I stepped into the body. 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 177 

" When recovering from my trance, I mentioned the names of these 
persons, telling how I saw them die, and which of them entered into 
rest. I said to my mother, Oh, that I had made one step further, then 
I should not have come back to earth. After telling them what I had 
to say, I desired them to say no more, for I still heard the voices and 
melodious songs of praises, and longed for my final change. 

" After I told them of the death of the three men, they sent to see 
if it was so, and when the messenger returned, he told them they were 
all dead, and died in their rooms, &c, as I had told them. Upon 
hearing it, I fell into tears, and said, Oh, Lord, wouldst thou hadst kept 
me and sent him back that was in pain, (for he seemed one of the lost.) 
The third was a colored man belonging to the widow Kearney, whom I 
saw die in the brick kitchen, and while they were laying his corpse on 
a board, his head fell out of their hands, which I plainly saw, with other 
circumstances ; for remember, the walls were no hindrance to my siyht. 
Though the negro's body was black, his soul was clothed in white, which 
filled me with joy, as it appeared to me a token of his acceptance with 
God. * * * Yet I was not permitted to see him fully enter into 
rest; but just as I thought myself entering, I came into the body 
again. 

" Sometime after my recovery, the widow Kearney, the mistress of 
the colored man, sent for me, and inquired whether I thought departed 
spirits knew one another ? I answered in the affirmative, telling her I 
saw her negro man die whilst I was lying as a corpse. She then asked 
me where did he die ? I told her in her brick kitchen, between the 
jamb of the chimney- and the wall ; and when they took him from the 
bed to lay him on the board, his head slipped from their hands. She 
then said, So it did! She then asked if I could tell where they laid 
him. I informed her, between the back door and street door. She 
said she remembered that it was so, and was satisfied, having reason to 
believe what she had often thought, that departed spirits knew each 
other in heaven. 

" These men, upon inquiring, were found to die at the very time I 
saw them, and all the circumstances of their death were found to be 
exactly as I related them. As some may desire to know how or in 
what shape these that were dead appeared to me, I would say that they 
appeared each in a complete body, which I take to be the spiritual body, 
separated from the earthly, sinful body. They were also clothed — the 
two that entered into rest, in white, and the other, who was seemingly 
cast off, had his garment someiohat white, but spotted. I saw also the 
bodies in which each of them lived when upon earth, and also how they 
were laid out; but my own body I did not see. The reason why I 
neither saw my own body, nor entered fully into, rest, I take to be this : 
that' my soul was not quite separated from my body, as the others were ; 
though it was so far separated as to permit my seeing those things, and 
hearing their songs of praise and thanksgiving. Some may think the 
dead know not each other. These I would refer to the Scriptures — 
12 



178 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

asking, did not Dives know both Abraham and Lazarus, though 
afar off?" 

Friend Say's journeyings in the spirit-world, while out of 
the body, are exceedingly valuable, because occurring long 
previous to the modern spiritual manifestations ; and, among 
the Quakers, a people distinguished for integrity, simplicity, 
and devotion to religious convictions. 

We are privileged with the personal acquaintance of 
several prominent media, who, becoming entranced, leave 
(save by s} 7 mpathetic and magnetic relations) their bodies, 
and, traveling with their spirit-guides through the heavenly 
spheres, observe the scenery and listen to celestial music. 
Such experiences bless the partakers beyond all blessing. 

Paul, referring to himself, according to Biblical exposi- 
tions, says he knew a man who was " caught up to the third 
heaven," where he " heard unspeakable words," and "whether 
he was in the body, or out of the body," at toe time, he could 
not determine. With those accustomed to cite apostolic 
authority, this scriptural language ought, at least, to favor- 
ably commend the idea of mortals leaving their bodies. The 
phraseology of Paul certainly implies that the spiritual man 
may be temporarily released from its corporeal relations in a 
degree, that it may ascend to " the third heaven ;" that is, 
the third sphere of spirit-life. The " unspeakable words " 
were, doubtless, the sublime utterances of an ancient Semitic 
seer, long summering in the upper kingdoms of glory, the 
vernacular of which even the scholarly Gentile Apostle was 
not acquainted. The past re-lives in the present, and the 
living now proffers the mystic key that unlocks and cor- 
roborates much of the past. 

John Wesley, high in the coronal region, gifted with full 
spirituality, and trained under the paternal roof to hear 
startling accounts of apparitions, clothed in vestures seamless 
and glittering, confessed to the spiritual as naturally as 
flowers turn to the sunshine in May mornings. The Rev. 
Samuel Wesley, father of the celebrated John Wesley, 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM CHURCHIANIC. 179 

founder of Methodism, while rector of Epworth, England, 
in 1716, heard noises and rappings several months in his 
residence, keeping a detailed account of them. 

The Rev. Mr. Hoole, of llaxey, visiting Mr. Wesley, wrote 
thus concerning the mysterious sounds : " After supper and 
prayers, we all went up stairs, and as we were standing 
round the fire, in the east chamber, something began knock- 
ing just on the other side of the wall, on the chimney-piece, 
as with a key. Presently the knocking was under our feet. 
"We went down — he with hope, I with fear. As soon as we 
were in the kitchen, the sound, was above us in the room we 
had. left. Mr. Wesley spoke to it. * * * * Soon after 
it knocked at the window, and changed its sounds into one 
like planing boards." 

As to the proceeding causes of these disturbances, the 
learned commentator, Dr. Clarke, has the following; — " For 
a considerable time all the family believed it to be a trick ; 
but at last they were all satisfied it was something super- 
natural." * * * " Some thought it was a messenger of 
Satan." **..*« Mrs. Wesley's opinion was different 
from all the rest, and was probably the most correct. She 
supposed that these noises and disturbances portended the 
death of her brother, then abroad in the East India Com- 
pany's service. This gentleman * * * suddenly disappeared 
and was never heard from more." 

Having had unquestionable evidence of mysterious agencies 
and spirit manifestations, in the tender years of childhood, 
and personally blessed with some of the " gifts" promised to 
believers, John Wesley, all through his evangelizing career, 
noted and recorded cases of spirit-power and premonition in 
his Journals and the " Arminian Magazine." 

" He healed the sick," writes a distinguished English author, " by 
prayer and laying on of hands. He and some others joined in prayer 
over a man who was not expected to live till morning ; he was speech- 
less, senseless, and his pulse was gone. Before they ceased, his senses 
and speech returned. He recovered ; and Wesley says they who choose 
to account for the fact by natural causes have his free leave : he says 
it was the power of God," (Vol. ii. p. 385.) 



180 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

" Wesley believed with. Luther, that devils — demons — produced dis- 
ease and bodily hurts ; tbat epilepsy and insanity often proceeded 
from demon influence. He declared that, if he gave up faith in 
witchcraft, he must give up the Bible. When asked whether he had 
himself seen a ghost, he replied, ' No ; nor have I ever seen a murder ; 
but unfortunately I am compelled to believe that murders take place 
almost every day, in one place or another/ Warburton attacked 
Wesley's belief in miraculous cures and expulsion of evil spirits ; but 
Wesley replied that what he had seen with his own eyes, he was bound 
to believe ; the bishop could believe or not, as he pleased/' 

Rev. Mr. Fletcher, of Wesley's time,, records many striking 
instances of angelic interposition. One related to his own 
bathing in the Rhine ; when sinking, he remained under 
water twenty minutes, and yet was restored. Some would 
say, "Why, this is a miracle !" " Undoubtedly," observes Mr. 
Wesley. " It was not a natural event, but a work wrought 
above the power of nature, probably by the ministry of 
angels." 

Southey mentions the psychological tendencies and expe- 
riences of Rev. Thomas Walsh, a Wesleyan preacher. " He 
was sometimes found in so deep a reverie, that he appeared 
to have ceased to breathe ; there was something resembling 
splendor on his countenance, and other circumstances seemed 
to attest his communion with the spiritual world." This 
corresponds to the state of many of our trance speakers. 
During the sermons, and especially in the prayer circles of 
the Wesleys,. the more susceptible became sufficiently spirit- 
ually influenced to manifest symptoms of violent spasms and 
convulsions. Similarly wrought upon in our day, Methodists 
have " fallen, with the power," and seen- visions — all phases 
of Spiritualism. 

The first Methodist preachers, threatened, persecuted, were 
afterwards cursed and stoned for their heresies and zeal in 
kindling the fading fires of religion. The English Church 
denouncing them as " disturbers of the peace, and seducers," 
compelled them, if preaching at all, to hold their services in 
lanes, streets and groves. They were humble during this 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 181 

period of their history, and spiritually minded. Prophet- 
mantles rested upon them. Now, becoming popular, proud, 
sectarian and persecuting, they are suffering an eclipse of 
faith — a deserved decline. As ye " mete," said Jesus, " it 
shall be measured to you again." As a denomination, 
angelic ministers and spiritual gifts have left them. The 
shell is thickening. The soul-fires of their primitive forces 
are dying under church formalisms and mocking sanctities. 

Dr. Adam Clarke, the profound linguist and Biblical 
Methodist annotator, accepted the central thought connected 
with Spiritualism — a present communion with departed 
spirits. Commenting upon the woman of Endor, Saul, 
Samuel and that upper world peopled by " various orders 
of spirits," he writes, in his Com. p. 299, vol. ii. : 

" I believe there is a supernatural and spiritual world, in which 
human spirits, both good and bad, live in a state of consciousness. 

" I believe that any of these spirits may, according to the order of 
G-od, in the laws of their place of residence, have intercourse with this 
world, and become visible to mortals. 

" I believe Samuel did actually appear to Saul, and that he was sent 
by the especial mercy of Grod, to warn this infatuated king of his 
approaching death." 

These are unequivocal expressions of belief. If, as Dr* 
Clarke affirms, the risen Samuel " actually appeared to 
Saul;" if the ascended Moses and Elias "talked with Jesus" 
in the presence of Peter, John and James ; if spiritual beings, 
denominated " Angels," " Men of God," " Men," held con- 
scious intercourse with earth's inhabitants during several 
thousand years of Scriptural history — why not now ? Is God 
mutable? Have deific laws changed? Has the "door" John 
saw opened in heaven been shut and barred ? Did Jesus fal- 
sify when ye said, "Lo! I am with you alway unto the end of 
the world ? " This beautiful belief in spirit intercourse, cher- 
ished by Dr. Clarke, so expanded his nature, that he clearly 
enunciated the doctrine of progression, and the final resto- 
ration of all souls to holiness and happiness. The thought 
thrilled him with ecstasy. Annotating upon a verse in 



182 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Romans, lie exclaimed — "Death shall be conquered; hell 
disappointed; the devil confounded, and sin totally de- 
stroyed ! " Writing of the passage of the apostle John — ■ 
" God is love " — he says, " God is an infinite fountain of 
benevolence and beneficence to every human being. He 
hates nothing that he has made. He cannot hate because 
he is love. * * * * He has made no human being for 
perdition ; nor ever rendered it impossible, by any neces- 
sitating decree, for any fallen soul to find mercy. * * * 
Love seems to be the essence of the Divine nature, and all 
other attributes to be only modifications of this." 

Ann Lee, honored by her admirers with the appellations, 
" Sainted Mother," and " Sister," overshadowed by angels 
of purity, and enlightened by the descent of celestial influ- 
ences, received her heavenly commission in 1758, near 
Manchester, England. Her visions were remarkable; her 
prophecies, oracles. The physical manifestations, relating 
to herself and adherents, consisted of dancing, trembling, 
whirling, and speaking with tongues. These exercises and 
spiritual gifts called down upon them the hostility of the 
Church. Priests and magistrates, who have ever sought to 
gag the truth, dungeon conscience, and impeach the induc- 
tions of science, charged them with disorder and Sabbath- 
breaking. The religious authorities slandered, fined and 
imprisoned them. 

In 1774, inspired by the " Christ of the new order," she 
received a revelation to emigrate to America. A few pure- 
purposed, loving souls clustered around her as a central 
teacher directed by angel ministers. 

This new church — the " Shakers " — much resembles the 
Essenes of Philo's time. The Nazarene had but three 
hundred followers when martyred upon Calvary. The 
increase of the Shaker fraternity has not been rapid ; but is 
permanent. Holding that God is dual, eternal, Father and 
Mother in deific manifestations, they practically teach the 
strict equality of the sexes. "First pure, then peaceable," 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 183 

they profess to live in the " resurrection state," and preach 
to those "without" — the Gentiles — to raise few and better 
children. They all believe in spirit manifestations and 
revelations. 

Elder F. W. Evans wrote Robert Owen, in 1856, that, 
" seven years previous to the advent of Spiritualism, the 
Shakers had predicted its rise and progress, precisely as 
they have occurred, and that the Shaker order is the 
great medium betwixt this world and the world of spirits. 
* * * Physical manifestations, visions, revelations, 
prophecies, and gifts of various kinds, of which voluminous 
records are kept, and, indeed, ' divers operations, but all of 
the same spirit,' were as common among us as gold in 
California." 

Elder J. S. Prescott, connected with the community near 
Cleveland, Ohio, made a similar statement to us during the 
session of the 4th National Convention of Spiritualists. Mr. 
Dixon, an English writer of considerable note, visiting 
Elder Evans, of Mount Lebanon, during his American tour, 
wrote thus of the Shaker doctrines : 

" To this dogma of the existence of a world of spirits — unseen by us, 
visible to them — the disciples of Mother Ann most strictly hold. In 
this respect, they agree with the Spiritualists ; indeed they pride them- 
selves on having foretold the advent of this ' Spiritual disturbance in the 
American mind.' Frederick tells me — from his angels — that the reign 
of this Spiritualistic movement ' is only in its opening phase ! it will 
sweep through Europe, through the World, as it is now sweeping 
through America ; it is based on facts, representing an active, though 
an unseen force.' 

" These Shaker communities all claim to be of spiritual origin ! — to 
have spiritual direction ! — to receive spiritual protection ! Hundreds 
of spiritual mediums are developed throughout the eighteen societies. 
In truth, all the members in greater or less degree are mediums. 

" Spiritualism," he continues, " in its onward progress, will go 
through the same three degrees in the world at large. As yet it is only 
in the beginning of the first degree, even in the United States. It will 
continue until every man and woman upon the earth is convinced that 
there is a God — an immortality — a spiritual, no less than a natural 
world; and the possibility of a social, intelligent communication 
between their inhabitants respectively," &c, &c. 



184 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

i 

Basing our opinion upon reliable testimony, these Shaker 
communities constitute a body of the neatest, healthiest, the 
/most pure-minded and kind-hearted souls. of earth. Cer- 
tainly they are the only people on this continent, who have 
successfully maintained, for more than seventy years, a 
system of rational living, one of the fundamental principles 
of which is the apostolic community of property. 

John Murray, the father of American (Jniversalisms, born 
in England, persecuted for his beautiful heresy in his native 
country, was a Spiritualist. The birth of all great religious 
thoughts have their origin always in some spiritual agency 
It was so with Murray. 

As early evidence of his mediumship and control by spirits, 
when but two years old, at his baptism, he articulated 
" Amen " — the first word he ever spoke. Clairvoyant, he 
saw a spirit — his Eliza — in Newgate prison, " irradiating 
the walls," before whom he, in his sorrow, prostrated him- 
self, and, inspired by her sweet magnetism, found relief. 
Speaking of this happy visitation in an hour of deep 
anguish, he said: "My soul became calm, and although 
every hope from this world was extinct in my bosom, yet I 
believed I should be the better able to accommodate myself 
to whatever sufferings the Almighty might think proper to 
inflict." 

When about to leave England for America, having served 
his time in prison for heresy, and feeling disconsolate over 
the departure from the scenes and associations of his home, 
he heard the voice of a guardian spirit, saying, " Be of 
good cheer. * * * Be not afraid when thou passest 
through the waters; I will be with thee, fear no evil!" * * 

But the most interesting feature of his spiritual experi- 
ences, showing how well and wisely the messengers of 
heaven direct even life's events, for the consummation of 
divine purposes, is delineated in his interview with Mr. 
Potter, after his arrival in America. 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 185 

By angel direction, Mr. Potter was impressed to build a 
meeting-house in the woods of 'New Jersey, under the 
assurance that in due time the true gospel would appear. 
Believing in the holy voice that appointed him, Mr. Potter 
faithfully built his house, and there it stood for years a mon- 
ument of his so-called " folly," in the estimation of his 
orthodox neighbors, who taunted him about his " forth- 
coming minister." Are the winds, too, under the command 
of spirits, as with Jesus on the sea of Tiberias ? They tost 
that vessel into the intended harbor, and Murray was thus 
brought to the very shore where lived Mr. Potter, of whom 
he requested a fish for the hungry sailors. 

In the meanwhile, the moment that vessel touched the 
shore, the familiar voice of the angel, who ordered the house 
to be built, spoke in his ear with thrilling, melting cadence — 

" There, Potter, in that vessel, cast away on that shore, is the preacher 
you have been so long expecting ! " 

Convicted, believing, nothing wavering, he waited the 
sequel, his heart serene with the love which the angel- 
presence inspired. When Mr. Murray came up to the door, 
asking for the fish, the mystic voice that, in other climes 
and ages, entranced the faithful to lofty, sublime deeds, 
was heard again — 

" Potter, this is the man, this is the person, whom I have sent to 
preach in your house ! '' 

Mr. Murray, astonished, bewildered — for he had resolved 
to abandon the ministry forever — persuaded, entreated, 
prayed to be absolved from the task ; but no, angel 
voices spoke to him in his nights of reflection ; and the 
strange circumstances thus developed, showing a heavenly 
providential overruling of tides and seasons, all crowded 
upon him with the afflatus of prophetic divinity. Yielding 
at length to the order of powers above, whose forces are 
law, and whose influences are sunbeams that bud and 



186 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

blossom the flowers of hope under tears of sorrow, he 
buckled on the armor of the " soldier of the cross," waked 
up the slumbering people to the action of freer thought and 
character, led to glorious victory, and, departing, left a 
trailing light of inspiration that has flooded deeper, higher, 
broader, till all the land is under the auroral baptism now of 
angels. 

When the heavenly inspirations of the faithful Murray 
and his self-sacrificing coadjutors, crystalizing into a creed, 
were chilled by formularies, interpreted by fossiliferous 
Conventions, stultified by straining after " ecclesiastic re- 
spectability," the angels of progress left the denomination to 
wither, shrivel, die ! ' Tis God's voice to every organic 
body — grow or perish ! Universalism was a stepping-stone 
from a broad Protestant faith to demonstrated immortality. 
The good it had is blossoming and seeding into Spiritualism. 

The tendency of all Christian sectarisms is downward, 
demanding faith without evidence, and saying to the aspi- 
rational soul — "thus far and no farther." The followers of 
all religious iconoclastic chieftains have, in after years, fallen 
far below their original standard-bearers. The Lutherans 
are per se sectarians. Methodists, degenerating from Wesley, 
Whitefield, Fletcher, as a church, virtually now deny all spir- 
itual gifts and communications. Calvinists, condemning 
the barbarities of Rome, turned inquisitors and persecuted 
dissenting souls unto death. The Puritans, leaving England, 
settling at Plymouth, and founding the ISTew England colo- 
nies, fled professedly from persecution, seeking a place to 
worship God according to the dictates of conscience, with 
the ulterior purpose of christianizing (?) the Indians! 
Settled, they commenced robbing those Aborigines, enslav- 
ing their women and children, and visiting upon them inhu- 
man and self-degrading cruelties. They plundered the 
towns of the natives ; paid bribes to assassinate Indian 
chiefs; burned hundreds of red men alive — and all in the 
name of Christ, the " Prince of Peace ! " 



CHURCHAL SPIRITUALISM — CHURCHIANIC. 187 

A prominent New England author bears the following 
testimony : 

" Their ablest and favorite divines declared that the burning of four 
hundred Indians at once, mostly women and children, seemed a sweet 
savor to Grod, while they admitted that it was awful to see their blood 
running and quenching the violence of the burning wood. * * They 
turned upon the Quakers. They imposed heavy fines for hearing them 
speak. They passed blue-laws. * * * They flogged, inhumanly, 
women and children. They put them in prison and whipped them 
daily. They cut off their ears. They bored their tongues with red- 
hot irons. They hung men, women and children as witches, and con- 
tinued it for fifty years. * * * They banished Roger Williams. 
They drove womsn and helpless children, under severest penalties, to 
seek protection among the savages, (where they were all murdered) 
because they differed with them on metaphysical divinity. * * As 
late as 1740, they enacted the most barbarous laws against heretical 
thinkers, and enforced the Saybrook Platform." 

Such was — such is, though modified by the genius and 
intelligence of the age, creedal Christianity, devoid of spirit- 
uality — formal Christianity, unbaptized of Spiritualism. 
Chaff without wheat ! shell without substance ! a swollen 
body without the spirit that giveth life ! 

"Far from the golden shores of fate 
I gaze across the past; 
Forever on life's dial-plate 
The shade is backward cast." 



"Ere long a fairer morn shall rise, 
With purer air and brighter skies, 
When force shall lay his scepter down 
And strength shall abdicate its crown, 
And truth incarnate sway the race, 
With mildest power and tenderest grace." 
******* 

"Ring out the darkness of the land, 
Ring in the Christ that is to be." 



y 



ECTURE VI 



Segmentary S 



ENTARY OPIRITUALISM, 



Chapter xix. 



THE PRELUDE. 



" Through the harsh noises of our day 
A low, sweet prelude finds its way ; 
Through clouds of doubt and creeds of fear 
A light is breaking calm and clear. 

That angel song, now low and far 
Ere long shall sound from star to star ! 
That light, the breaking day which tips 
The golden-spired Apocalypse." 

Circles are the highest symbols. There are probably no 
straight-line motions in the universe. Those seeming such 
are on a scale so vast the curve cannot be perceived. Frag- 
ments are all parts of circular bodies, as a piece of granite 
rock is a part of those primitive formations that encircle the 
earth. Atoms gyrate upon their axes and follow the line of 
their strongest attractions. Things move in spirals, and 
generally with the sun, from left to right. Sea-shells are 
built up spirally. Vines ascend forest trees spirally. Par- 
ticles of steel flying toward a magnet move spirally. This 
law, with few exceptions, applies to atoms, worlds, systems, 
civilizations, and all those historic cycles of ever-recurring 
spiritual epochs and eras that distinguish antiquity. 

Progress underlies all things, and Spiritualism, though 
ever majestic in its past windings, may be compared to the 
ocean waves that rise and fall. It has had its mornings 
and evenings of decline. Its careers fleck the nights and 

191 



192 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

days of earth's varied rovolutions with splendors unspeakable , 
and its heaven-illumined truths, voiced by angelic inspired 
chieftains, have rolled in solemn grandeur all along the 
sunlit periods of the half-buried ages; and its musical echoes 
add to the glories of the nineteeth century. 

Each spiritual wave, in accordance with the laws of accel- 
erated motion, rose above the preceding, bearing the masses 
higher up the altitudes of wisdom. The impetus was greater; 
the spray from the wave more glittering; the principles 
involved, coupled with its holy teachings, were, during each 
succeeding period, more widely diffused. 

Under some name and in some form Spiritualism, as 
herein demonstrated, has constituted the basic foundation, 
and been the motive force of all religions in their incipient 
stages. The Spiritualism of to-day differs from that of five 
thousand years since only in the better understanding of its 
philosophy, the general concession of its naturalness and 
its wider dissemination through the different grades of 
society. It has been and is G-od's visible seal of love to all 
climes and ages. 

The spirit-world is the world of causes; this of effects. 
Objective entities are but the projections of etherealized 
spirit-substances. Inventions relating to industrial activities, 
or the spiritual exaltation of the races, have their first birth 
in the inner life. All great projects for the moral redemp- 
tion of humanity, primarily conceived in the upper deeps 
of infinity, are inflowed from immortal minds to receptive 
mortals by the law of influx. These mediumized souls, 
impressionally catching the shadowy dim-defined plans, 
fashion them into forms ; or perhaps partially constructing, 
push them out into the sensuous world. As spirit moulds 
and takes on form, so wisdom ceaselessly descends from the 
heavens. 

Cognizant of a rising spiritual wave, Congresses of Angels 
devised the noble project of laying the foundation-stone of 
this new Temple, majestic, cosmopolitan, and strikingly 
sublime, in America — land of free thought, free speech, free 



PRELUDE. 193 

press — land where the people, conscious of their God-given 
rights, and cringing before no cowled priests, feel themselves 
sovereigns — " kings and priests unto God." 

Premonitions and prophecies are announcing heralds, 
breathing 

" A mystical lore, 



And coming events cast their shadows before." 

The record stands undisputed, that Swedenborg, just 
before his departure to spirit-life, in 1772, prophesied that, 
in about eighty years, wonderful phenomena of a spiritual 
nature would occur on the earth. The four score years 
expired in 1852. 

A young man, residing in Western New York, 1836, and 
other individuals in different localities, examining the merits 
of Mesmerism, fell into trance conditions, disclosing the fact, 
that within twelve or fourteen years a remarkable book 
would be published, the contents of which would not be as 
startling as the source from whence it originated. In about 
eleven years, " Nature's Divine Revelations " was dictated 
by spirits through A. J. Davis, in his clairvoyant state, and 
issued from the press. 

In 1835, and several years thereafter, Wm. Miller and 
adherents, were impressed with great impending changes, 
denominated " the end of the world and the second coming 
of Christ to judgment." They interpreted the " word " of 
the Scriptures literally, thus confounding the personal with 
the spiritual coming. The blunder was fatal to the progress 
of the sect. The end of the theologic world of creeds and 
popish dogmas was approaching, and Christ was speedily 
coming as a spirit spiritually in the "clouds of heaven, with 
all his holy angels with him." These " holy angels " were 
the ministering spirits with whom many of earth's inhabitants 
now hold converse. 

About this period immortalized spirits, originally from 
India, China, Persia, European countries, and American In- 
dians, visited the various Shaker communities of the country, 
13 



194 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

and controlling the more mediumistic members, " spoke in 
tongues," prophesied, and gave remarkable communications 
relative to the opening of the " seals," and the descent of 
spiritual powers and gifts to the " world's people." Earth 
and heaven abounded in signs of an approaching new era. 

In 1846, some two or three years before the faintest trans- 
latable echo from the summer-land had reached an American 
ear, A. J. Davis stated, and it stands recorded in his "Divine 
Revelations," (p. 175,) that the shining intelligences of the 
second sphere of existence were soon to hold tangible com- 
munion with the people of earth. These were his prophetic 
words — " It is a truth that the spirits of the higher spheres 
commune with persons in the body by influx, although 
they are unconscious of the fact. This truth will ere long 
present itself in the form of a living demonstration. * * 
* * And the world will hail with delight the ushering 
in of the era ! " 

"Why come not spirits from the realms of glory 
To visit earth, as in the days of old — 
The times of ancient writ and sacred story ? 

Is heaven more distant ? or has earth grown cold ? 

To Bethlehem's air was their last anthem given 
When other stars before the One grew dim? 

Was their last presence known in Peter's prison, 
Or where exulting martyrs raised the hymn ? " 



y 



ECTURE VII, 



Modern S 



ODERN OPIRITUALISM. 



Chapter xx, 



SPIRIT PHENOMENA. 



"He who, outside of pure mathematics, pronounces the word 
impossible, lacks prudence." — Arago. 

" The Angel of the Lord descended from heaven and rolled back the 
stone from the door and sat upon it." — Matthew. 

" Peter, sleeping between two soldiers, bound with chains, the 
keepers at the door of the prison ! the Angel of the Lord came and 
smote him, and the chains fell from his hands. 

" Passing the first and second wards and coming to an iron gate, it 
opened of its own accord, and they went out. 

" When Peter knocked at the door of the gate; a damsel came, who 
knowing his voice opened the door with gladness, and returning told 
them Peter stood at the gate. 

"They said to her, thou art mad. * * * * It is his angel. 
But Peter continued knocking. 

" When they had opened the door and saw him, they were 
astonished." — Acts. 

" The thing that hath been, is that which shall be, and that which 
is done, is that which shall be done." — Ecclesiastcs. 

" Loved ones are rapping to-night ! 
Heaven seems not far away ! 
Death's sweeping river is bright! 
Soft is the sheen of its spray. 
Oh, bid them welcome in garments of white 
To hearts that are pure and illumined with light." — Emma Tottle. 

The rappings ! — listen, theologians! The "Rochester 
knockings ! " — sweet seolian-toned echoes from spirit-lands 
in demonstration of immortality ! 

197 



198 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

"Behold," said Jesus, "I stand at the door and knock." 
That apostolic " cloud of witnesses " — our sainted loved 
ones, approaching the doors of our understanding through 
sounds, dreams, visions, premonitions and inspirations, plead 
for recognition and admission ! 

" The love which survives the tomb," says Irving, " is one 
of the noblest attributes of the soul." 

Golden memories are undying. Pure love is immortal. 
The bud of friendship that begins to bloom on earth, bears 
precious fruitage in heaven. Holy remembrances call the 
ascended hither. Death, the silent key that unlocks life's 
portal to let earth-encoffined spirits up one step higher, 
severs no sweet attraction. Sympathies between the two 
worlds, are as natural as between the two continents. The 
translated mother looks down lovingly upon her weeping 
child. Delicate the electric table-touch — musical the " rap " 
— blessed the intelligent response — sacred the message ! and 
happy each glory-bathed soul, who, catching, cherishes the 
whisper-accents breathed from those angel dwellers upon the 
shadowless shores of immortality. 

Minute the initial steps of all great movements ! How 
pale the thinkers face, standing in that retired mechanic's 
workshop ! He paces the cinder-paved floor crazily, while 
riveting processes are being adjusted through a succession of 
little continuous " raps." Rivet after rivet fastened — wheels 
poised — machinery arranged, and lo! steam engines bidding 
defiance to winds and waves — crossing continents and white- 
ning oceans — dash the gifts of commerce at our feet. Robert 
Fulton, inspired by inventors of the better land, is on earth 
immortal ! 

Bouchard, digging in 1799, in the fort of St. Julian, discov- 
ered the Rosetta stone written over in speaking characters, 
epistolary, hieroglyphic and symbolic. This, with subse- 
quent discoveries, equally important, led to a full verification 
of the historic records of Herodotus. These figures and 
hieroglyphs carved upon Lydian stones, on obelisks and 
pyramids, permitted ancient Egypt to tell the world, in her 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM SPIRIT PHENOMENA. 199 

own native language, of prior golden ages, putting t<> shame 
the boasted civilizations of Greece and Rome. 

Newton, on a summer's afternoon, saw an apple drop to the 
earth. It was an effect. Investigating, studying inductively, 
the great law of gravitation flashed upon his mind. Ark- 
Wright, carefully watching the vibratory motions of a cog in 
a wheel, was repaid by discovering the principles of a new 
mechanical law, resulting in the saving of labor and life. 
Franklin, with kite and string, called subtle electric fire- 
fluids from the 'storm-clouds above him, and chaining them 
to machinery, threw an eternal truth into the face of all the 
sere-mantled ages. Now telegraphic wires girdle the globe, 
and words from Americans to Asians, outfly the winds and 
sunbeams. Joshua, Grecianized into Jesus, awoke to outer 
conscious life in a Judean " manger." Humble and unpro- 
pitious the advent! But there lay concealed causes destined 
to shake kingdoms, and give practical force to a higher 
civilization. Few attend the birth of genius. All newly- 
conceived truths are cradled in mangers. No age appreciates 
the martyr souls that take advanced positions. 

The riveting — then the engine whose motive force lies 
behind the gracefully folding sails that whiten oceans ; the 
kite and silken strings — then telegraphic communication^ 
belting the planet with burning thoughts; the vacated 
manger adjoining Bethlehem — then nations and swarming 
empires bowing to the " cross of Christ;" the " rappings " 
near Rochester, the heavens opened — then overjoyed multi- 
tudes, shouting — See! — behold! a tangible demonstration of 
a future existence ! 

This has ever been the divine formula for inaugurating 
new dispensations. God was not in the whirlwind bending 
Lebanon's cedars; but in the "still small voice." To 
inductive plodders, however, the more potent causes em- 
ployed in the establishment of these tidal eras, pass unno- 
ticed, because spiritual. Scientists deal only with' phenomena 
and forms of substance. They see mountains; but not the 
hidden volcanic fires that rend them. They discern oaks in 



200 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

the distance; but not the electricity that shivers them to 
atoms. They behold parlor tables move without visible 
contact; yet are blind to those potential spirit-forces con- 
nected with the motions. Science Deeds spiritualizing. The 
gods playing upon the harp-strings of unseen causes, ever 
conquer. In spirit-life, wisely to plan is to perfect. 

The mediative heralds of higher, brighter cycles — the 
standard-bearers of newly-conceived truths, bathing their 
pale foreheads in the first pearling sprays from celestial 
fountains, unappreciated, persecuted, pronounced " mad,'' 
banished from aristocratic circles — generally suffer social 
martyrdom, or are put to slow torturous deaths by the 
prevailing "respectable" conservatism of the times. 

Reformers of all ages, whose mystic words startled the 
world, and whose inspired thoughts streamed like pearls 
down the future, unrecognized by Church or State, were 
branded " infidels ! " But the future did — -will do justice to 
such, erecting over their lifeless remains splendid monu- 
ments, where millions each spring morning shall delight to 
scatter flowers and evergreens, beautiful emblems of a 
fadeless immortality. 

When the philosophically inclined heard of these phe- 
nomena, starting almost simultaneously in different portions 
of the world, they earnestly sought the producing cause. 
This, natural to cultured Germans, was especially praise- 
worthy in Americans. Truly great men are not only critical 
reasoners, but rigid investigators of newly-announced sub- 
jects or sciences. Theologic darkness trembles at every 
flash of advancing light. Bigots and moss-wreathed clergy- 
men, fearing, heard in those gentle tappings from loved 
ones, only ghostly mutterings of the devil. Sectarists 
religiously canned, sealed and creed-encrusted, cried in 
tones fearful and sepulchral — " humbug ! " an exclamation 
distinguishable for ponderous lungs and liliputian mentality. 
A parrot can assume grave platitudes and mouth the word 
with pious grace ! 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM SPIRIT PHENOMENA. 201 

Progress daily invites to fresh feasts. " Let the church 
take care," says Carlyle " when God lets loose a great 
thought." Inspiration, art, science, theories, discoveries, 
" knockings ! " each, all, the results of hidden spirit forces, 
exert their legitimate influences. Nebulse — then through 
methods formative and systematic — worlds. Cells, combi- 
nations—then orderly systems. Rappings — then acknow- 
ledged angel ministries whispered in millions of home- 
circles— 

" This is not a matter of to-day 



Or yesterday, but hath been from all time 

And none hath told us whence it comes, or how." 

Egypt had its wierd augural staves from which were 
elicited meaning sounds rhythmic with melodies of immor- 
tality. The spirit-pendulum, mysterious to the masses, was 
employed in the ancient services of Hydromantia. The 
alphabet was successfully employed by the initiated few in 
the times of the Emperor Yalens. Melancthon mentions 
rappings occurring in Germany in his day. 

Though mysterious sounds and voices of deep import had 
been heard in the palmier periods of the Orient, and at 
brightning intervals for hundreds of years, in different Euro- 
pean countries, as historic testimonies and the older British 
reviews abundantly prove ; yet it remained for impulsive, 
inspirational Americans to translate (March, 1848) those dis- 
turbing forces and noises, into intelligible communications. 

The genius of our institutions, tending to the widest 
individual freedom, had ripened the intellectual soil of the 
continent for a rich spiritual seeding. Spirits were ste be 
the sowers. John's prophetic angel was already in the over- 
arching heavens, waiting to preach the '^everlasting gospel." 
The seventh trumpet had sounded. The time had come for 
" loosening of the seals of the book of life," that a future 
existence might no longer be considered a matter of faith; 
but of absolute knowledge. 



202 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

As the Maries — " holy women of Syria, mediumistic and 
intuitive — were first at the Nazarenean tomb to triumph- 
antly announce — " he is not here, but risen ;" so women in the 
initiatory hour of tne spiritual dispensation, were the first to 
construct the key, and devise the method, for understand- 
ing^ interpreting the fact, that a blissful converse in har- 
mony with natural law, had been established between the 
two worlds of conscious existence. 

" Tongues broke out, in unknown strains 
And sung surprising grace " — 

The gates of heavenly courts ajar, angels, white-robed, 
and baptized in the silvery dews of paradise, re-appeared, 
opening again the song that anciently thrilled the watching 
shepherd-souls of Syria — " Peace on earth and good will to 
men/' 



Lhaptef^ XXL 



MEDIUMSHIP.* 



Sunlight through the ether of space — electricity through 
the telegraphic wire — steamers through the waves of myriad 
waters — rivers through valleys — blood through veins and 
arteries — mind through brain ! All principles, indeed, all 
forces, are mediative. Our organs, our senses, our faculties, 
are media of life, of love, of thought. Mediumship inter- 
permeates and interlines all phases, all attributes, all mo- 
tions of being. It is universal. What nature is to spirit, 
what body is to its soul, phenomenon is to Spiritualism the 
sign and seal, the portal and initiation of this new religion. 
As substance precedes forms, so spirit, in the divine order, 
precedes these " modern manifestations." Phenomena, 
therefore, are necessary to discoveries of spiritual truth, as 
facts are to inductive science. All objective knowledge of a 
future existence is obtained through the gradations of 
spiritual mediumship. 

Some writers on the Spiritual Philosophy enumerates 
seven, others twenty-four phases of mediumship ; as well 



* Aside from book references, we are indebted for many of the ideas in this 
volume, to ancient spirits, or inspiring influences. These, frequently entranc- 
ing Dr. E. C. Dunn, our traveling companion for several years, in the capacity 
of a healer, gave us valuable suggestions and precious truths, coined from the 
mint of supernal life. The spirit teacher to whom this book is dedicated, 
though a member of our circle, is the spirit-guide of Bro. Dunn, phases of 
whose mediumship we have never seen excelled. In the field of progress, ho 
is a successful healer and eloquent speaker. 

203 



204 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

specify seven hundred and twenty-four thousand. Truth is 
a unit; but its manifestations are as diverse as the organiza- 
tions through which it is revealed. Mediumship, therefore, 
must be as multiform as the diversities of conditions and 
relations. 

Mediumship, like inspiration, is both general and special. 
As spirits en rapport with the surrounding spiritual atmos- 
phere, breathe and envelop themselves with its aura, they 
are influenced by the aggregated magnetic force of the age, 
thus comprehending our needs in faithful ministrations by 
pouring down upon us love-waves of heavenly inspiration, 
leveling up humanity at large, the same as the sun attracts 
and unfolds the floral beauties Of all landscapes. But spirits 
in sympathy of purpose may band together, as do earthly 
corporations, to accomplish special objects through the best 
adapted media. 

Vibrate one chord of a musical instrument, and all the rest 
of the same tension will vibrate in harmony with it. So the 
human spirit, sensitive to the gentlest influence from the 
spiritual spheres, sustains similar relations with spirits that 
musical chords do to each other. Thus spirit undulates to 
spirit. The greater the harmony, the more perfect the 
responsive undulation. As if comprehending this beautiful 
law, Jesus prayed that his " disciples might be one with him 
as he was one with the Father." 

The manifestations of mediumship are graded really accord- 
ing to the constituent structure of the organism. The outer 
electric sphere surrounding media, and others, also, is com- 
posed of emanations, not only from the body, but from each 
of its organs. Indeed, each brain faculty has its distinctive 
radiation. By this both spirits and clairvoyants measure 
our mental states. Man's spiritual sphere, being interior, 
emanates from the more ethereal and vitalized substances. 
The predominance of man's electric sphere from the more 
gross or material — under control of corresponding spirits — is 
specially adapted to physical manifestations; while the pre- 
dominance of his spiritual sphere, allies him more intimately 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — MEDIUMSHIP. 205 

with the " inner life," in harmony with the spiritual of the 
spirit world. 

As a general division of mediumship, the following is 
warrantable : 

I. Physical. 

II. Psychological. 

III. Inspirational. 

Under the physical is comprehended the rappings, tip- 
pings, mechanical writing, spasmodic motions, movements 
of extraneous bodies, etc. To inductionists, and the masses 
generally, these are, like letters of the alphabet, important 
in arresting attention and giving tests of spirit identity and 
the transfer of intelligence, leading to the more interior and 
substantial. 

Under the second heading may be classed psychological 
presentations, trance, vision, dream, dependent clairvoyance, 
spirit painting, discovery of mineral and oil treasures, 
and poetical musical improvisations, etc. 

Under the third may be enumerated impressions, symbolic 
pictures, inventions, prophecies, illumined perceptions, exal- 
ted inspirations, independent seership, communion with 
superior intelligences from the heavens, etc. 

Spiritual circles should be formed upon scientific princi- 
ples. The voltaic pile, constructed of copper and zinc plates, 
in alternation, to evolve the galvanic fluid, is highly sugges- 
tive of the best method. It is well to seat in these circles 
male and female, alternately, as positive and negative, with 
a discriminating eye to temperament and adaptation. Man 
is not necessarily positive nor woman negative. In the 
harmonial man or woman, the attractive and repellant are 
equally balanced. Joining the hands induces a more 
unitive intermingling of the magnetic forces. Honest skep- 
ticism is no hindrance to success, but angularities and jeal- 
ousies are. The circle once formed in order, there should 
be no intrusion — no change of conditions. Minds should be 
passive, the aspirations heavenly, the heart purely centered 
upon the elucidation of truth with a patient, devotional 



206 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

spirit; and light will surely reveal what the candid soul is 
seeking — the demonstration of angel presence. 

When the inquirers have advanced into the real inner life 
of spirituality, there is little or no need for the circle to 
center the magnetic forces. Through true development 
such have come into complete rapport with their spirit- 
guides, rendering the circle no longer a necessity. They 
virtually become one of the circle, constituting its earthly 
polarity, receiving by sympathetic inspiration the enlightened 
unfoldment of angelic life. 



Lhaptei\_ XXII. 



WITNESSES. 



Judge Edmonds, a jurist of unimpeachable integrity and 
keen discernment, estimates the number of Spiritualists in 
this country at " eleven millions." If belief in the mere 
fact of conscious spirit converse legitimately entitles to the 
appellation, Spiritualist, the venerable Judge is evidently 
quite correct. In the wider, and, we think, better definition, 
Spiritualism inter-related to the inductive and deductive 
methods of research, implies fact and philosophy — science and 
religion — culture, growth, and a true harmonial life. 

In a lecture delivered by this eminent legal gentleman, 
before the Spiritualists worshiping in Ebbitt Hall, he said : 

" I have been addressed upon the subject of Spiritualism by letter, 
or personally, by persons from Cadiz in Spain, from Corfu and Malta in 
the Mediterranean, Bengal and Calcutta in Asia, from Venezuela in 
South America, from Austria, Germany, England, France, Italy, Greece 
and Poland in Europe, from Algiers and Constantinople, from almost 
every State in North America; and I have heard of my own publica- 
tions being found on the Himalaya Mountains in Asia, and in the fore- 
castle of a whale ship in the Northern Ocean ; and in many different 
languages — Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, German, Polish and Indian. 
Such and so wide-spread has become, within the short period of fifteen 
years, the knowledge of and the interest in our faith. 

" So among the churches have I witnessed its wide-spreading influ- 
ence. High dignitaries, archbishops and bishops — both Catholic and 
Protestant ; many untitled clergymen, of almost every denomination, 
and Jewish Rabbis, have alike shown their belief and their interest in 
the subject." 

207 



208 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

A foreign correspondent writing from London, for the 
Boston Commonwealth, informed its readers that — 

" It had been publicly stated and not denied, that John Stuart 
Mill had become a convert to Spiritualism. Certainly the Spiritualists 
have an imposing catalogue of names to present before England : 
Buskin, Mill, Wilkinson, Dr. Whately, "William and Mary Howitt, Mr. 
and Mrs. S. C. Hall, and (it is said) Frederick Tennyson. Doubtless, 
the majority of these have been helped to this conversion by the 
extreme reaction against Positiveness and Atheism, with a violent 
yearning to find something beyond the grave other than the ' desolate 
perhaps.'" 

The Boman Catholic Guardian, St. Louis, Missouri, pub- 
lished, Sept, 1868, a pastoral letter from Bishop Viviers, 
relating to the jplanchette and spiritual manifestations. Here 
follow extracts of confession and warning : 

" Doubtless there are relations between the intelligence of men and 
the supernatural world of spirits. These relations are necessary; 
they are all sweet and consoling to the poor creature exiled in this 
valley of teajjfs. But God has not given us the power of communica- 
ting with the other world by any and every way, which human impru- 
dence might avail itself of * * * 

. " To wish to penetrate it in any other manner, (than the church pre- 
scribes) to seek to discover by natural means the hidden mysteries of 
heaven, or the terrible secrets of hell, is the most foolish and culpable 
of undertakings ; this is to make an attempt to disturb the order of 
providence and to make useless efforts to over-step the limits imposed 
on our present condition. * * * 

" What shall we say to them who fear not to address hell itself, in 
order to call from it the spirit of Satan ? For it is that cunning spirit 
which most ordinarily plays the principal part in these manifestations ! 
Certainly, we ourselves do not doubt the fatal intervention of the fallen 
angels in human affairs. * * * 

" All idolatrous worship was but an incessant communication with 
demons. Socrates conversed with his familiar spirit; Pythagoras 
believed in the soul of the world, which animates, according to him, 
the different spheres, as the soul animates the body. The poet Lucan 
has described the mysteries which were used to enter into relation with 
the manes of the dead ; and, in times yet more remote, souls from the 
other world were invoked to demand the revelation of hidden things. 

" But," continues the vigilant pastor a long time before the mul- 
titude of facts which have been developed from so many quarters, and 
under so many observing eyes, were able to demonstrate to him the 
extraordinary frequency of the action of these malicious and perfidious 
invisible beings, " if there is but little belief in the presence of these 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — WITNESSES. 209 

spirits which they invoke by means of the tables, they should be not 
less certainly convinced that these experiments are one of the thousand 
ruses of Satan to cause souls to perish." 

The following is from the New York Independent : 

" Spiritualism is holding up its head in London. The Davenport 
Brothers, by their physical manifestations, are exciting a greater sensa- 
tion than Mr. Hume did. He conversed with spirits — or, at all events, 
claimed to have the power of spiritual.intercourse. * * * It cannot 
be denied that Spiritualism has made many converts in this country, 
and that some of the most estimable of our literary men and women, 
like the Howitts, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, and Mr. Robert Bell, are 
believers in what I suppose one must call this strange delusion. Mary 
Howitt's last new story — 'The Cost of Caergwyn ' — which contains 
some charming sketches of Welsh life and character, is made weird-like 
and unnatural by all sorts of ghostly incidents. After all, this is better 
than the other extreme — that sea of unbelief, to which many of our 
finest intellects are drifting. Everything denotes a period of transition 
and change, and I suppose all will come out right in the end." 

The ISTew York Leader, under the caption — " Spiritualism 
looking up," — quotes from Robert Bell's able contribution to 
the Cornhill Magazine, and sagely maintaining that the matter 
of Spiritualism is " deserving of earnest attention," con- 
cludes a very fair article with the following remarks : 

" The phenomena witnessed by Robert Bell, were witnessed at the 
same time by Dr. Grully, the eminent physician of Malvern ; by the 
eminent Dr. Collier, of London, and by other persons distinguished for 
the -social positions they have attained by learning, genius, ability, and 
vigor of mind. William Howitt, the author, has seen and vouches 
marvels equally startling. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, a Minister of 
State ; Newton Crossland, one of our most successful lecturers and 
aoutest annotators; Parker Snow, of the Arctic expedition; Mr. and 
Mrs. S. C. Hall, celebrated in literature; Sir David Brewster, Dr. Bird, 
Lord Brougham, and many others of equal note, are all believers in the 
spiritualistic theory. It is also known that Louis Napoleon is a firm 
and ardent student of these phenomena, and that he received many 
messages through Mr. Hume, purporting to emanate, and believed by 
him to emanate, from the spirit of Napoleon the First." 

The New York Herald, devoting nearly a column, awhile 
since, to the influence and prospects of Spiritualism, admits 
that — 

" Ever since the Fox girls, of Rochester fame, commenced those 
knockings that made so much noise in the world, this subject has 
14 



210 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

occupied at intervals the attention and invited the investigation of 
many scientific minds all over the world. Such men as Lord Lynd- 
hurst, Lord Brougham, Sir David Brewster, and others, took much 
interest in it. Some people claimed that these distinguished men were 
believers ; others asserted that they were confirmed skeptics. No 
matter for that : they thought the subject worth looking into, like 
a great many other people. * * * It is said that even Queen 
Victoria consulted the Davenports, and we know that Louis Napoleon 
has for a long time been pursuing his star in the seances of the 
American Spiritualist, Home. 

" The movement is a growing one, strictly democratic, popular in its 
character, and revolutionary in its nature, and defiant towards the 
prevailing theology of the age. Its influence is felt in the jury-box, 
the ballot-box, the bench, the press, the platform, the pulpit, and even 
our national council halls. It asserts the great Protestant principle of 
the right of eacb man to judge for himself, become his own Evangelist, 
and get to heaven his own way. It presents the strange anomaly of 
meetings without a ministry, worship without churches, conventions 
without delegates, halls and fluent speakers that they pay for, and yet 
without church edifices, funded property or real estate — without ordi- 
uations, convents, colleges or creeds, written or implied. Spiritualists 
as a body act together, and even now have become a great power in 
this country ! " 

On another occasion it published an account, saying — 

"• The capital of Peru has been recently (August 7th) thrown info 
some commotion by a pastoral letter of its Archbishop, addressed to his 
flock, in reference to magnetism, Spiritualism, rappings and other phe- 
nomena, which had lately received a good deal of attention among the 
Peruvians." 

This Church dignitary stoutly affirms, that it is " all the 
work of the devil." 

The Round Table, aristocrat among the New York week- 
lies, and one of the most astute and critical periodicals 
published in the country, says — 

" This question of Spiritualism has been suggested anew to us 
through reading an account of a ' mysterious disappearance in Cincin- 
nati, Ohio.' * * * . 

" We take for our point of departure an extract from a letter written 
in the autumn of 1852, by Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, of Providence, 
R. I., to Horace Greeley. Mr. Greeley heads the extract with a note to 
this effect : ' The writer has received the following letter from Mrs. 
Sarah H, Whitman, in reply to one of inquiry from him as to her own 
experience in Spiritualism, and especially with regard to a remarkable 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — WITNESSES. 211 

experience, currently reported as having occurred to Hon. James F. 
Simmons, late United State Senator from Rhode Island, and widely 
known as one of the keenest and clearest observers, most unlikely to be 
the dupe of mystery or the slave of hallucination. Mrs. Whitman's 
social and intellectual eminence are not so widely known ; but there 
are very many who know that her statement needs no confirmation 
whatever.' 

" By the way, Mr. Simmons was in the Senate for another term after 
that writing, and he was looked up to as one of the ablest, most prac- 
tical, and most upright of its members. It may be not improper for us 
to state, in the same connection, that we have examined some corres- 
pondence with Mrs. Whitman relative to the knowledge of her mani- 
festations. She states therein that her attention was called to the 
mystery in the latter part of the year 1849, about three months before, 
(mark this,) before any intelligence had reached her of the singular 
exhibitions in Rochester. She noticed the sounds (gentle tappings, 
they were near the hour of midnight, while she was alone in her cham- 
ber) for the first time after the death of a friend. This friend was a 
boy by the name of Albert Helm, about ten years of age. He came to 
his death by drowning near noon of the day preceding the night on 
which the raps were heard. But to Mr. Greeley's letter : 

' Dear Sir — I have had no conversation with Mr. Simmons on the 
subject of your note until to-day. I took an early opportunity of 
acquainting him with its contents, and this morning he called on me to 
say that he was perfectly willing to impart to you the particulars of his 
experience in relation to the mysterious writing 'performed under the 
very eyes, in broad day light, by an invisible agent. 

' In the fall of 1850, several messages were telegraphed to Mrs. 
Simmons through the electric sounds, purporting to come from her 
step-son, Jas. I). Simmons, who died some weeks before in California. 
The messages were calculated to stimulate curiosity and lead to an 
observation of the phenomena. Mrs. Simmons, having heard that 
messages in the hand-writing of deceased persons were sometimes 
written through the same medium, asked if her son would give her 
this evidence. She was informed (through the sounds) that the 
attempt should be made, and was directed to place a slip of paper in a 
certain drawer at the house of the medium, and to lay beside it her own 
pencil, which had been given her by the deceased. Weeks passed, and 
although frequent inquiries were made, no writing was found on the 
paper. 

' Mrs. Simmons happening to call at the house one day, accompanied 
by her husband, made the usual inquiry and received the usual answer. 
The drawer had been opened not two hours before, and nothing was 
seen in it but the pencil lying on the blank paper. At the suggestion 
of Mrs. Simmons, however, another investigation was made, and on the 
paper were found a few pencil lines, resembling the hand-writing of the 
deceased, but not so closely as to satisfy the mother's doubts. Mrs. 



212 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Simmons handed the paper to her husband; he thought there was a 
slight resemblance, but would probably not have remarked it had the 
writing been casually presented to him. Had the signature been given 
him, he should at once have decided on the resemblance. He proposed, 
if the spirit of his son were indeed present, as alphabetical communi- 
cations received through the sounds affirmed him to be, that he should, 
then and there, affix his signature to the suspicious document. 

k In order to facilitate the operation, Mrs. Simmons placed the closed 
points of a pair of scissors in the hand of the medium and dropped her 
pencil through one of the rings or bows, the paper being placed 
beueath. The hand presently began to tremble, and it was with diffi- 
culty it could retain its hold of the scissors. Mr. Simmons then took 
the scissors into his own hand and dropped the pencil through the ring. 
It could not readily be sustained iu this position. After a few moments, 
however, it stood as if firmly poised and perfectly still. It then began 
slowly to move. Mr. Simmons saw the letters traced beneath his eyes — 
the words, James D. Simmons, were distinctly and deliberately written, 
and the hand-writing tvas a facsimile of Ms son's signature. 

'But what Mr. Simmons regards as the most astonishing part of this 
seeming miracle is yet to be told. Bending down to scrutinize the 
writing more closely, he observed, just as the last word was finished, 
that the top of the pencil leaned to the right. He thought it was 
about to slide through the ring; but, to his infinite surprise, he saw the 
point slide slowly back along the ivord ' Simmons,' till it rested over the 
letter i, when it imprinted a dot. This was a puctilio utterly unth ought 
of by him — he had not noticed the omission, and was therefore entirely 
unprepared for the amendment. He suggested the experiment, and he 
thinks it had kept pace only with his will or desire ; but how will those 
who deny the agency of disembodied spirits in these marvels, ascribing 
all to the unassisted powers of the human will, or to the blind action 
of electricity — how will they dispose of this last significant and curious 
fact? 

' The only peculiarity observable in the writing was that the lines 
seemed sometimes slightly broken, as if the pencil had been lifted, then 
set down again. 

' One other, circumstance I am permitted to note, which is not readily 
to be accounted for on any other than spiritual agency. Mr. Simmons, 
who received no particulars of his son's death until several months after 
his decease, proposing to send for his remains, questioned the spirit as 
to the manner in which the body had been disposed of, and received a 
very minute and circumstantial account of the means which had been 
resorted to for its preservation, it being at the time unburied. Im- 
probable as some of these statements seemed, they were, after an inter- 
val of four months, confirmed as literally true by a gentleman then 
recently returned from California, who was with young Simmons at the 
period of his death. Intending soon to return to California, he called 
on Mr. Simmons to learn his wishes in relation to the final disposition 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — WITNESSES. 213 

of his remains. The above particulars I took down in writing, by the 
permission of Mr. Simmons, during his relation of the facts.' 

" This case we have given as a fair representative of a class of cases 
— as one among a thousand similar ones, which have been testified to by 
tens of thousands of witnesses whose candor, truthfulness and common 
sense touching a usual occurrence, would not be disputed for a moment. 
Then, we may be allowed to offer it as a particular subject for consid- 
eration, just as if it embraced the whole matter seeking discussion and 
decision. We think it better so than otherwise; because anyone, more 
especially any one who is not much in the habit of arguing, can do his 
cause fuller justice while confining himself to particulars, than he can 
when going off into generalities — he is apt, in the latter way, to lose 
himself and his argument. 

" Well, what exactly is the pith of the cause before us ? It is this : It 
in effect is affirmed by many thousand witnesses, who ordinarily would be 
reckoned trustworthy by any court in Christendom, that a certain piece 
of information had been imparted to them in a certain way. There is not 
the shadow of a reason for supposing that they — the witnesses — were 
not in full possession of their every-day senses at the time of the phe- 
nomena. They had broad day light and every other natural facility for 
those senses to be normally impressed. The communication was written 
by no visible hand — by the hand of no one of themselves present. The 
chirography is that of no one present ; but it does bear a full facsimile 
resemblance to that which they have been familiar with, of a person 
whom they knew at the time to be away from among them. There was 
no possibility for the substance of the communication through common 
means to be known to them at the time it was given. That substance 
was proved afterward, upon normal evidence, to be the actual substance, 
both in general and in detail, of an actual event. Then, here is shown, 
unmistakably, an act, committed by no discoverable natural instrument, 
and presided over by an intelligence, by mind, which is outside of, apart 
from, distant from anybody within the neighborhood of the committal. 

" And now comes the point which we desire to hold out to view, and 
upon which, as upon a pivot, all discussion touching the matter ought 
to turn. It is this : Where and what is that intelligence ? Those tens 
of thousands of witnesses have been led, not hastily, but gradually, 
after careful sifting and weighing of evidence, to the conclusion that it 
is no other than the spirit which has dwelt heretofore in the body now 
departed. They find confirmation of their belief in their Bibles, which 
tell them distinctly of departed spirits not only, but of the returning 
of the same to earth. In that conclusion they are fixed firmly, rightly, 
according to sound law, until such time as their opponents shall array 
evidence equally strong to sustain their own contrary theory, whatever 
that may be. If they maintain that intelligence to be, for example, 
electricity, they are bound to exhibit to the actual eyesight the produc- 
ing battery and the conducting wires, and to reveal precisely how it 



214 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

happened that the battery came into possession of just those materials 
out of which to brew electrieity, such as should be identical with the 
knowledge possessed by a particular body before it parted with its spirit. 
If they hold the intelligence to be mesmerism, it devolves upon them 
to point out the rnesnierizer, to explain how he manages to throw from 
his own mind into that of another, information which never was in his 
mind, and how he handles the pencil. Hence the burden of the proof 
is upon the negative. Let her or him who will take the negative bring 
forth the proof." 

The Scientific American, a rightly named and widely circu- 
lated paper, writes editorially of the Planchette : 

"You may hold a conversation with planchette, provided your own 
part in it consists in interrogation. Its replies, so far as we have seen, 
are sometimes true and sometimes false. So are the replies given by 
human respondents. It sometimes refuses to write at all, and plays the 
most fantastic tricks, in apparently wilful disregard of the feelings of 
those who are anxious that it should do its best. * * * These 
motions seem to those whose fingers rest upon the board to be entirely 
independent of their own wills, their only care being to avoid any 
resistance to its motions. The fact that it is impossible to suppose that 
the wills of two persons could be, by their own desire, mutually co- 
incident, without previous agreement, forms one of the most puzzling 
features of the subject, as the nature of the question asked and 
answered precludes the possibility of collusion." 

" The spirit with which scientific men have looked upon these phe- 
nomena, (denominated Spiritualism) has been unfortunately such as has 
retarded their solution. Skepticism as to their reality, although cor- 
roborated by evidence that would be convincing upon any other subject, 
refusal to investigate, except upon their own conditions, and ridicule 
not only of the phenomena themselves, but of those who believe in 
them, have marked their course ever since these manifestations have 
laid claim to public credence. Such a spirit savors of bigotry. The 
phenomena of table-tipping, spirit-rapping (so called), and the various 
manifestations which many have claimed to be the effect of other wills 
acting upon and through the medium of their persons, are exerting an 
immense influence, good or bad, throughout the civilized world. They 
should, therefore, be candidly examined, and if they are purely phys- 
ical phenomena, as has been claimed, they should be referred to their 
true cause. This is due to truth, and the common duty which all owe 
to their fellow men. Nothing that affects the welfare of mankind 
should be considered beneath the notice of a true philosopher. What 
incalculable benefit might have resulted if the same amount of study 
had been given to the subject of witchcraft, at the time of its occur- 
rence, that has since been bestowed upon it. When such things become 
matters of history, there are always enough who do not think it derog- 
atory to their dignity to devote their time to speculation upon theii 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM WITNESSES. 215 

causes. How much wiser is it to throw aside prejudice, and to look at 
the facts themselves in a spirit of candor and earnest desire for truth." 

The Herald and Review, a religious journal, writes edito- 
rially of the progress of the spiritual movement in this 
style: 

" We often hear the remark, ' Spiritualism is dying out.' Whenever 
we hear one make such a statement, we are led to think at once, Did 
you know what it is doing, you would take back that saying, and stand 
aghast at its gigantic strides. He might as well have said, Popery was 
dying out in the thirteenth century, because very little noise was made 
about it. The reason was, there were scarcely any left to oppose, hence 
all was comparatively quiet. Spiritualism has already planted its sen- 
timents so firmly, and generally, in church and state, that the victory 
is nearly complete. The opposition is now very feeble, like that of a 
dying man in his last moments. 

" We do not say that the great body of the church and state are yet 
avowed Spiritualists ; but that the sentiments of Spiritualists, more or 
less, are being adopted by the masses." 

This, though perhaps an unwilling, is a true manly 
confession. 

Thus are these literati, scientists and sectarists forced to 
concede to Spiritualism a wonderful destiny of use in every 
department of earth's government. "When the ocean moves 
in unchainable tides, all the bays and coves fill up to over- 
flowing. Every soul is moved by the inflowing tides of 
inspiration. All are pushed forward. Even opposition 
reacts into acceleration. " He maketh the wrath of man to 
praise Him." 



Chapter xxiii. 



CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 



"Out of the strong, came forth sweetness." — Judg. 14 : 14. 

" In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established." — 
Matt. 18 : 16. 

" I give you the end of a golden string : 
Only wind it into a ball, 
It will lead you in at Heaven's gate, 
That invitingly ope's for all." 

The ideal is the prophetic. It precedes, in orderly series, 
the objective actual. The finest human types, moulding the 
present, are but dwarfs of those promised men, yet to crown 
the ages with ineffable splendor. Out from the evolutions of 
a life divine and circular, are continually being born leaders 
and witnesses for the people. The good abounds everywhere. 
Progress is universal. The rock that one civilization fails 
to crush, crumbles into soil to nourish the roots of the 
succeeding. The bee extracts sweets from thistles and 
thorn-blossoms. At the tolling of church-bells on Sunday 
mornings, there stream from old barreled sermons many glit- 
tering truths. Piercing through the sophistries of specu- 
lation, the lifeless skepticism of science, and the corpse- 
incrustations of creeds, there are living, regenerating forces 
at work in the most hidden avenues of society. Angels 
seek and minister to all conditions of mortality. The clergy, 
overshadowed by an inspiration that stirs the divinity within, 

216 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 217 

often preach better than they believe — wiser than their con- 
fessions of faith warrant. As in apostolic times, a " rushing 
wind," a descending afflatus from circling bands of spirits, 
sometimes completely overmasters them. They then speak 
as with tongues of fire, and their words touch the heart, the 
conscience and the reason. 

Souls thus kindled from the love-flames of heaven, pulsate 
in harmony with the infinite Over-Soul. Spirit answers to 
the spiritual. Partially intromitted, at times, into the realm 
of that quickening inner life, as was John, of Patmos, " on 
the Lord's day," the better portion of American preachers 
often preach Spiritualism; admitting the reality of its phe- 
nomena, and the truth of much or all of its philosophy. 

Rev. H. "W". Beecher's testimony : 

" Oh, tell me not that the fathers of this Republic are dead — that 
generous host, that airy army of invincible heroes. They hover as a 
cloud of witnesses above this nation. Are they dead that yet speak 
louder than we can speak, and a more universal language ? Are they 
dead that yet act ? Are they dead that yet move upon society, and 
inspire the'people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism?" 

In one of his practical sermons, delivered ou the 8th of 
Jan., 1867, he says : 

" Our field of conflict is different from that on which men oppose 
each other. It comprises the whole unseen realm. All the secret 
roads, and paths, and avenues, in* which spirits dwell, are filled with a 
great invisible host. These are our adversaries. And they are all the 
more dangerous because they are invisible. Subtle are they. We are 
unconscious of their presence. They come, they go ; they assail, they 
retreat; they plan, they attack, they withdraw; they carry on all the 
processes by which they mean to suborn or destroy us, without the 
possibility of our seeing them. 

" I confess to you, there is something in my mind of sublimity in the 
idea that the world is full of spirits, good and evil, who are pursuing 
their various errands, and that the little that we can see with these 
bats' eyes of ours, the little that we can decipher with these imperfect 
senses, is not the whole of the reading of those vast pages of that 
great volume which God has written. There is in the lore of God 
more than our philosophy has ever dreamed of. 

" An evil spirit may be consummately refined, may be inspired. Our 
first thought in contemplating this subject is. that an evil spirit must 



218 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

be a vulgar thing. Doubtless there are vulgar spirits; but it does not 
follow at all that spirits who are most potential, and most to be feared, 
are vulgar. On the contrary, where spirits are embodied, it is supposed 
that those who are the most cultured are the most powerful for evil. 

" The perversion of moral ideas — the suborning of all things to sel- 
fishness — the want of truth and equity — the corruption of religion — 
these things are inexplicable on any other supposition than that there 
are mighty powers at work above the agencies of nature, and beyond the 
will of men ; that there are spirits of wickedness that are abroad in 
the world, and that render life unsafe. 

" On the other hand, I believe that there are angels of light, spirits 
of the blessed, ministers of God. I believe, not only that they are our 
natural guardians, and friends, and teachers, and influencers, but also 
that they are natural antagonists of evil spirits. In other words, I ■ 
believe that the great realm of life goes on without the body very much 
as it does with the body. And, as here the mother not only is the 
guardian of her children whom she loves, but foresees that bad asso- 
ciates and evil influences threaten them, and draws them back and 
shields them from the impending danger; so ministering spirits not 
only minister to us the divinest tendencies, the purest tastes, the noblest 
thoughts and feelings, but, perceiving our adversaries, caution us against 
them, and assail them, and drive them away from us. 

'" The economy, in detail, of this matter, no man understands. All 
we can say is, in general, that such antagonism exists; that there are 
spirits that seek our good, and other spirits that seek our harm ; that 
that there are spirits that seek to take us to glory, and honor, and 
immortality, and other spirits that seek to take us to degradation." 

In another discourse reported in the New York Independ- 
ent, he employed the following unmistakable language. The 
quotations are introduced without any special view to their 
logical connection. Mr. Beecher himself is a stranger to 
the logic of the schools : 

" There is an atmosphere of the soul as well as an atmosphere of 
nature. In the atmosphere of the soul, God sometimes brings down 
the divine landscape, heavenly truths, so clearly that the soul rests 
upon them as upon a picture let down. 

" Out of the dust and din and mist and observations of life, there 
come moments when God permits us to see, in a second, further, wider, 
and easier, than by ordinary methods of logic we can see in a whole life. 
Do I undervalue logic when I say that it is inferior to intuition ? Intu- 
ition, when at white heat, teaches a man in a single moment more than 
logic ever teaches him. Logic constructs the walls of thought, throws 
up ramparts, and lays out highways ; but it never discovers. Logic 
merely builds, fortifies, demarks. The discovering power is intuition. 
There are certain times when parts of the mind lift themselves up with 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 219 

a kind of celestial preparation, and we see and think and feel more in 
a single hour than ordinarily we do in a whole year. And however 
useful and needful reasoning may be, as compared with these sudden 
insights, it is scarcely to be mentioned with respect. 

" Ordinarily we are under the influence of the things which are seen. 
In our lower life we must be under the influence of sense. But now 
and then, we know not how, we rise into an atmosphere in which spirit- 
life, G-od, Christ, the ransomed throng in heaven, virtue, truth, faith 
and love, become more significant to us, and seem to rest down upon us 
with more force, than the very things which our physical senses recog- 
nize. There have been times, in which I declare to you, heaven was 
more real than earth ; in which my children that were gone spoke more 
plainly to me than my children that were with me ; in which the blessed 
estate of the spirits of just men made perfect in heaven, seemed more 
real and near to me than the estate of any just man upon earth. These 
are experiences that link, one with another and a higher life. They 
are generally not continuous, but occasional openings through which we 
look into the other world. ***** These glimpses of. the 
future state are a great comfort and consolation to all those who are 
looking and waiting for that development of perfect manhood." 

This clergyman doing an immense work for freedom and 
religious progress, should not be too severely criticised by 
such uncompromising progressionists as were fortunate 
enough, to snap their ecclesiastical fetters at a single bound. 
Though contradictory, though his clerical trumpet often 
gives an "uncertain sound," he is a grand man with a warm 
heart and an inspirational brain. Pardon him, then, for 
occasionally " falling from grace," to flounce, at intervals, 
in the miry clay of his childhood catechism. The history of 
mediumship furnishes many similar cases. 

Rev. E. H. Chapin's testimony : 

In a masterly discourse, entitled "the voices of the dead," 
this eminent pulpit orator breathed these words of cheer. It 
is Universalism just blooming into Spiritualism — faith smiling 
at its first glimpse of knowledge : 

" Well, then, is it for us at times, to listen to the voices of the dead. 
By so doing we are better fitted for life and for death. From that 
audience we go purified and strengthened into the varied discipline of 
our mortal state. "VVe are willing to stay, knowing that the dead are so 
near us, and that our communion with them may be so intimate. We 



220 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

are willing to go, seeing that we shall not be wholly separated from 
those we leave behind. We will toil in our lot while God pleases, and 
when he summons us we will calmly depart." 

Referring to certain moods and " consecrated nours," he 
adds: 

" Then, though dead, they speak to us. It needs not the verbal 
utterance, nor the living presence, but the mood that transforms the 
scene, and the hour supplies these. That face that has slept so long in 
the grave, now bending over us, pale and silent, but affectionate still — 
the more vivid recollection of every feature, tone, and movement, that 
brings before the departed just as we knew them, in the full flush of 
life and health — that soft and consecrating spell which falls upon us, 
drawing in all our thoughts from the present, arresting, as it were, the 
current of our being, and turning it back, and holding it still, as the 
flood of which rushes by us — while in that trance of soul, the beings 
of the past are shadowed — old friends, old days, old scenes recur, 
familiar looks beam close upon us, familiar words re-echo in our ears, 
and we closed up and absorbed with the by-gone, until tears dissolve 
the film from our eyes, and some shock of the actual wakes us from our 
reverie ; — all these, I say, make the dead commune with us as really 
as though in bodily form they should come out from their mysterious 
silence and speak to us. And if life consists in experience, and not mere 
physical contacts — and if love and communion belong to that expe- 
rience, though they take place in meditation, or dreams, or by actual 
contact — then, in that hour of remembrance, we have really lived with 
the departed, and the departed have come back and lived with us." 

Rev. Theodore Parker's testimony : 

This individual, so self-poised and towering in intellect, 
was the man-colossus among American clergy. Ascended 
he is living and speaking still, through our media. Assum- 
ing that revelation was no green-house exotic, but perpetual 
as cycling ages, and that inspiration, native to the postures 
of the soul, is cognate with the races, he propagated a 
religious philosophy that will stream in increasing beauty 
through all the future eras of free thought. His grave is a 
Mecca under the mellow skies of Florence. Considered 
mentally he was thoroughly self-conscious of his greatness. 

" Tend this head well," says Mirabeau, on his death-bed; 
" it is the greatest head in France." " God gave me great 
powers," says the expiring Parker, " and I have but half 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 221 

used them." The coincidence was singular, while saying 
in his last hours — " There are two Theodore Parkers, the 
one here sick and struggling, the other at work at home." 
There was a friend reading at the time one of his great 
sermons in Music Hall. There were " two Theodore Par- 
kers " — the shadow and the substance, for man is dual, aye, 
trinal. The papers thought him "wandering a little." The 
Jews evidently thought Paul was " wandering " when 
" caught up to the third heaven," not knowing whether he 
was in the body or out. 

In thought and speech, relative to the Spiritual Philosophy, 
he was manly and heroic. In notes made for a sermon we 
hud the following : 

" In 1856 it seems more likely that Spiritualism would become the 
religion of America, than in 156 that Christianity would become the 
religion of the Roman empire, or in 756 that Mohammedanism would 
be that of the Arabian populations : 

"1. It has more evidence for its wonders than any historic form of 
religion hitherto. 

"2. It is thoroughly democratic, with no hierarchy; but inspiration 
is open to all. 

"3. It is no fixed fact — has no punctum stans, but is a punctum 
Jiuens. 

"4. It admits all the truths of religion and morality in all the world- 
sects." 

" Shall we know our friends again ? For my own part I cannot doubt 
it; least of all, when I drop a tear over their recent dust Death does 
not separate them from us here. Can life in heaven do it? " 

The succeeding paragraphs we transcribe from Wm. How- 

itt's "History of the Supernatural." Who but Theodore 

Parker could have written thus upon Spiritualism ? 

" Let others judge the merits and defects of this scheme ; it has 
never organized a church — yet, in all ages, from the earliest, men have 
more or less freely set forth its doctrines. We find these men amongst the 
despised and forsaken ; the world was not ready to receive them. They 
have been stoned and spit upon in all the streets of the world. The 
' pious ' have burned them as haters of God and man ; the wicked called 
them bad names and let them go. They have served to flesh the swords 
of the Catholic Church, and. fed the fires of the Protestants; but flames 
and steel will not consume them ; the seed they have sown is quick in 
many a heart — their memory blessed by such as live divine. These are 



222 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

men at whom the world opens wide the mouth, and draws out the tongue, 
and utters its impertinent laugh ; but they received the fires of God on 
their altars, and kept living its sacred flame. They go on, the forlorn 
hope of the race ; but Truth puts a wall of fire about them, and holds 
the shield over their heads in the day of trouble. The battle of truth 
seems often lost, but is always won. Her enemies but erect the blood 
scaffolding where the workmen of God go up and down, and, with 
divine hands, build wiser than they know. When the scaffolding falls 
the temple will appear." * * 

" This party has an idea wider and deeper than that of the Catholic 
or Protestant; namely, that God still inspires men as much as ever; 
that he is imminent in spirit as in space. For the present purpose, and 
to avoid circumlocution, this doctrine may be called Spiritualism. This 
relies on no church tradition, or scripture, as the last ground and infal- 
lible rule. It counts these things teachers, if they teach — not masters; 
helps, if they help us — not authorities. It relies on the divine presence 
in the soul of men — the eternal word of God, which is Truth, as it 
speaks through the faculties he has given. It believes God is near the 
soul as matter to the sense ; thinks the canon of revelation not yet 
closed, nor God exhausted. It sees him in Nature's perfect work ; 
hears him in all true Scriptures, Jewish or Phoenician ; feels Him in 
the inspiration of the heart; stoops at the same fountain with Moses 
and Jesus, and is filled with living water. It calls God, Father, not 
King ; Christ, brother, not redeemer; Heaven, home; Religion, Nature ! 
It loves and trusts, but does not fear. It sees in Jesus a man, living, 
man-like ; highly gifted and living with blameless and beautiful fidelity 
to God — stepping thousands of years before the race of men — the pro- 
foundest religious genius that God has raised up; whose words and 
works help us to form and develop the native idea of a complete reli- 
gious man. But he lived for himself, died for himself, worked out his 
own salvation, and we must do the same; for one man cannot live for 
another, more than he can eat or sleep for him. It lays down no creed, 
asks no symbol, reverences exclusively no time nor place, and therefore 
can use all time and every place. It reckons forms useful to such as 
they help. Its temple is all space, its shrine the good heart, its creed 
all truth, its ritual works of love and utility, its profession of faith a 
divine life, works without faith, within love of God and man. It takes 
all the helps it can get ; counts no good word profane, though a heathen 
spoke it — no lie sacred, though the greatest prophet had said the word. 
Its redeemer is within, its salvation within, its heaven and it oracle of 
God. It fills back on perfect religion — asks no more, is satisfied with 
no less." 

Harriet Beecher Stowe's testimony : 
While walking among the trees that surrounded the Aber- 
deen Cathedral, immortals seemed to accompany this truly 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 223 

inspired woman and author. In " Sunny Memories," she 
wrote : 

" I canuofc get over the feeling that the souls of the dead do some 
how connect themselves with the places of their former habitation ; 
and that the hush and thrill of spirit, which we feel in them, may be 
owing to the overshadowing presence of the invisible. St. Paul says, 
' we are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses ; ' but how can 
they be witnesses if they cannot see and be cognizant ? " 

From one of her articles relating to the New Year, we 
select a few of the more touching paragraphs. As signifi- 
cant of the subject, she commenced with this poetic quotation : 

"It is a beautiful belief, 

That ever round our head 
Are hovering, on viewless wings, 
The spirits of the dead." 

" One of the deepest and most imperative cravings of the human 
heart, as it follows its beloved ones beyond the veil, is for some assur- 
ance that they still love and care for us. As a German writer beauti- 
fully expresses it, 'Our friend is not wholly gone from us; we see 
across the river of death, in the blue distance, the smoke of his cot- 
tage;' hence the heart, always suggesting what it desires, has ever 
made the guardianship and ministration of departed spirits a favorite 
theme of poetic fiction. 

" But is it, then, fiction ? Does revelation, which gives so many hopes 
which nature had not, give none here ? Is there no sober certainty to 
correspond to the inborn and passionate craving of the soul ? Do 
departed spirits in verity retain any knowledge of what transpires in 
this world, and take any part in its scenes ? All that revelation says 
of a spiritual state is more intimation than assertion ; it has no distinct 
treatise, and teaches nothing apparently of set purpose, but gives vague, 
glorious images, while now and then some accidental ray of intelligence 
looks out — 

' Like eyes of cherubs shining 
From out the veil that hid the ark.' 

" But out of all the different hints and assertions of the Bible, we 
think a better inferential argument might be constructed to prove the 
ministration of departed spirits, than for many a doctrine which has 
passsed in its day for the height of orthodoxy. 

" What then ? May we look among the band of ministering spirits 
for our own departed ones ? Whom would God be more likely^to send 
us '( Have we in heaven a friend who knew us to the heart's core ? a 
friend to whom we have confessed our weaknesses and deplored our 



224 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

griefs ? If we are to have a ministering spirit, who better adapted ? 
Have we not memories which correspond to such a belief? When our 
soul has been cast down, has never an invisible voice whispered, ' There 
is lifting up ? ' Have not gales and breezes of sweet healing thought 
been wafted over us, as if an angel had shaken from his wings the 
odors of paradise ? Many a one, we are confident, can remember such 
things. And whence come they ? 

" But again — there are some spirits (and those of earth's choicest) 
to whom, so far as enjoyment to themselves or others is concerned, this 
life seems to have been a total failure. A hard hand from the first, 
and all the way through life, seems to have been laid upon them ; they 
seem to live only to be chastened and crushed, and we lay them in the 
grave at last in mournful silence. To such, what a vision is opened by 
this belief! 

"They have overcome, have risen, are crowned, glorified; but still 
they remain to us, our assistants, our comforters, and in every hour of 
darkness their voice speaks to us : 'So we grieved, so we struggled, so 
we doubted; but we have overcome, we have obtained, we have seen, 
we have found ; and in our victory behold the certainty of thy own." 

In a poem clipped from the New York Independent, she 
writes her elairaudient experiences in Spiritualism, in lines 
thus sweet and tender : 

"Those halting tones that sound to you 
Are not the tones I hear ; 
But voices of the loved and lost 
Now greet my longing ear. 

I hear my angel mother's voice ; 

Those were the words she sung; 
I hear my brother's ringing tones, 
, As once on earth they rung. 

And friends that walk in white above 

Come 'round me like a cloud, 
And far above those earthly notes 

Their singing sounds aloud." 

Rev. Wm. E. Channing's testimony : 

" I live, as did Simeon, in the hope of seeing a brighter day. I do 
see gleams of dawn, and thai ought to cheer me. I hope nothing from 
increased zeal in urging an imperfect, decaying form of Christianity. 
One higher, clearer view of religion rising on a single mind, encourages 
me more than the organization of millions to repeat what has been 
repeated for ages with little effect. The individual here is mightier 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 225 

than the world ; and I have the satisfaction of seeing aspirations after 
this purer truth. * * * * We need not doubt the fact, that 
angels whose home is heaven, visit our earth, and bear a part in our 
transactions ; and we have good reason to believe that if we obtain 
admission into heaven, we shall still have opportunity, not only to retnrn 
to earth, but to view the operation of God in distant spheres, and be 
his ministers in other worlds." 

Bayard Taylor's testimony : 

Referring, in the New York Mercury, to " mysterious 
incidents," happening upon the Pacific coast, and in other 
countries, as singular personal experiences of his own, Mr. 
Taylor writes : 

"■ Let skeptical, hard, matter-of-fact men talk as they may, there is a 
lingering belief in the possibility of occasional communication between 
the natural and the supernatural — the visible and the invisible world — 
inherent in human nature. There are a few persons whose lives do not 
contain at least some few occurrences, which are incapable of being 
satisfactorily explained by any known laws — remarkable presentiments, 
coincidences, and sometimes apparitions, even, which seem to be beyond 
the reach of accident or chance, and overcome us with a special wonder." 

" It was, perhaps, an hour past midnight, along the foot-hills of the 
Nevadas, when, as I lay with open eyes gazing into the eternal beauty 
of Night, I became conscious of a deep, murmuring sound, like that 
of a rising wind. I looked at the trees; every branch was unmoved — 
yet the sound was increased, until the air of the lonely dell seemed to 
vibrate with its burden. A strange feeling of awe and expectancy 
took possession of me. Not a dead leaf stirred on the boughs ; while 
the mighty sound — a choral hymn, sung by ten thousand voices — 
swept down over the hills, and rolled away like retreating thunder over 
the plain. It was no longer the roar of the wind. As in the wander- 
ing prelude of an organ melody, note trod upon note with slow, majes- 
tic footsteps, until they gathered to a theme, and then came in the 
words, simultaneously chanted by an immeasurable host : ' Vivant 
terrestrial' The air was filled with the tremendous sound, which 
seemed to sweep near the surface of the earth, in powerful waves, 
without echo or reverberation. 

" Suddenly, far overhead, in the depths of the sky, rang a single, 
clear, piercing voice of unnatural sweetness. Beyond the reach of 
human organs, or any human instrument, its keen alto pierced the 
firmament like a straight white line of electric fire. As it shot down- 
ward, gathering in force, the vast terrestrial chorus gradually dispersed 
Aito silence, and only that one unearthly sound remained. It vibrated 
slowly into the fragment of a melody, unlike any which had ever reached 
my ears — a long undulating cry of victory and of joy; while the words 
' Vivat Caelum ! ' were repeated more and more faintly, as the voice 
. 15 



226 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

slowly withdrew, like a fading beam of sunset, into the abysses of the 
stars. Then all was silent. I was undeniably awake at the time, and 
could recall neither fact, reflection, nor fancy of a nature to suggest 
the sounds. * * * How does one faculty of the brain act, so far 
beyond our consc'ous knowledge, as to astound us with the most 
unexpected images ? Why should it speak in the Latin tongue ? How 
did it compose music — which would be as impossible for me as to write 
a Sanscrit poem ? " 

Rev. G. H. Hepworth's testimony : 

As a representative of liberal Unitarianism, this clergyman 
has few superiors. His sainted mother, a medium, lived and 
passed to the better-land a confirmed Spiritualist. In a 
funeral sermon, after Mr. Hepworth had cited sundry cases 
of mediumship in the Scriptures, the case of Joan of Arc, 
Socrates, Luther, Swedenborg and Indian medicine men, he 
remarked : 

" I have been greatly interested in the new sect, or denomination, 
that has come into existence in the last few years. Its members call 
themselves Spiritualists. Fifteen years ago they were laughed at; now, 
who laughs at them? Then, few had ever heard of such a system of 
doctrines ; now, they number their converts by millions — they tell me 
that there are six millions of believers, so-called, in the United States 
alone — and these converts belong to all classes of society, from the 
poorest to the richest and most learned. They have thirty journals 
devoted to the propagation of their faith. They have a library of five 
hundred volumes advocating their sectarianism. The moment your eye 
glances over these figures, you ask, Why is this? The answer is plain ; 
first, because the doctrine of communion has put off its oppressive robes 
of selfishness and personal aggrandizement, and put on the white garments 
of good news to the world ; and second, because nothing is more evident 
to my mind than that the world longs to believe, and needs to believe, 
something of this sort. It is essential to our religious well-being. The 
very minute that terrible desolation enters a house and robs the family 
of a loved member, leaving as a sacred memento of the past only the 
' vacant chair,' the holiest part of our human natures looks up to 
heaven with a dim, vague expectation, with a belief that has never 
taken a definite shape, perhaps, that though we cannot see them, they 
do see and know us. * * * * I have the very firmest faith in 
that kernel of inspiration which has given to the sect all its value, the 
assertion that heaven is close to us, and that its inhabitants walk the 
earth both when we wake and when we sleep. It seems to me that this 
truth is at the centre of all true religion ; and when I bid the sect God- 
speed, it is with the grateful feeling that it is reviving the forgotten 
truth which the prophets and the Christ himself have taught us. Yes, 
I do believe in this possible communion with all my heart." 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 227 

Rev. A. D. Mayo's testimony : 

When pastor of the Unitarian Church, in Albany, N. Y., 
Mr. Mayo, in an excellent article on " Transcendentalism 
and Spiritualism," expressed his convictions thus definitely : 

" Transcendentalism has been confined to the circles of the cultivated, 
though in many ways it is helping to form the national theology. This 
habit of thinking on religion, which has been ridiculed in every Evan- 
gelical pulpit and newspaper as the essence of absurdity and infidelity, 
is simply the American cultivated rendering of the words of Jesus — 
' The kingdom of God is within you.' It is a protest agaiust the ban- 
ishment of Glod from nature and the soul ; an assertion that the Deity 
lives in America as he did in Palestine, and underlies our conscious- 
ness as surely as that of Moses and Isaiah. To it we are indebted for 
the substitution of the simple doctrine of Jesus concerning Universal 
Inspiration, in place of the worn-out machinery of the orthodox Holy 
Spirit. * * * But it is not as a body of people interested in mes- 
meric media, that this large religious denomination, now numbering 
4,000,000 of disciples, chiefly concerns the observer of American theol- 
ogy, but as an exhibition of the popular tendencies of thought on 
religion. Spiritualism is a natural awakening of the American masses 
to the doctrine of the Immortal Life taught by Jesus. This movement 
is mightily shaking the American church ; severing great ecclesiastical 
bodies, rending churches, depopulating fashionably furnished temples, 
and every year coming up with increased assurance to demand of the 
popular theology an account of its stewardship. A portion of the 
churches have welcomed it, and we will be saved by their wisdom ; but 
woe to the sect or church that sets its face against it. It is not to be 
stayed by criticism from a theological or sesthetical point of view. 
We shall learn out of it what it means in the 19th century to believe in 
the immortality of the soid ; and it will be found that this doctrine will 
come to us fraught with vaster relations, suggesting larger duties, and 
elevating with nobler aspirations, than to the darkened masses of the 
early ages of Heathenism or middle ages of Christianity. * * * 
Invisible hands leave upon our tables gifts of faith and deathless love 
and immortal hope, of which our fairest Christmas flowers and our 
greenest wreaths are but withered and vanished types. The pavement 
is thronged with a mighty host that crowds no hasty passenger, and 
speaks in no audible voice, but all the time holds sweet converse with 
the hearts of them that go to and fro. The school and the senate, and 
the places where men congregate for the serious work of life, have their 
empty chairs ; empty to our mortal vision, yet to the eye of the soul 
filled with forms of unearthly wisdom and dignity and grace. I preach 
not to-day to this congregation alone ; but this church is thronged and 
overflowed, yea, the whole air is populous with an audience you cannot 
see; for every beloved spirit that has left its mark on mine, and every 
weary and stricken soul that I have tried in feebleness to help, and 



228 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

every countenance that only for once has gleamed out in spiritual recog- 
nition from the strangest crowd ; all who have heard my words on earth 
will hear them no more ; all whose words I have heard for the last time 
in this valley of mortality, all are here to-day." 

"When a few more of the " Rulers of the Pharisees have 
believed" — when a few more esteemed great, gifted and 
reputable, as guaged by the world's standard, openly avow 
their knowledge of a future existence through modern spir- 
itual phenomena, certain clergy will re-affirm their once 
brave utterances breathed in moments of inspiration, and 
stoutly aver that early in the resurrection morning of Amer- 
ican Spiritualism, they were present and among the first to 
proclaim it as a " natural awakening of the masses to the 
doctrine of immortality!" Spiritualists must keep their 
chain of historic records bright against that prophetic day, 
when the "priests of my people shall be brought into 
judgment." 

Rev. Q. W. Skinner's testimony : 

" No matter what explanation we may give thereof, the facts of what 
is called modern Spiritualism have ever been in existence. To deny 
them is idle; to ignore them is trifling; to ridicule them is to exhibit 
our own weakness. 

" What shall we do with the facts ? The records of all times 
mention them ; the Bible is full of them ; they are said to be happen- 
ing all about us to-day. The movement of modern Spiritualism, by 
some, is supposed to rest solely on these phenomena. This question of 
Spiritualism will yet be a greater disturbing element in the religious 
world than it is at present. These wonderful facts will interest the 
curious and engage the attention of the candid; and from them much 
light may be shed on obscure natural laws. The intelligent masses of 
America want more rational ideas of Grod, of the soul, and of our 
future life." 

Rev. G. S. GJowdy's testimony: 

" I have no means of determining, definitely what portion of our 
Universalist preachers are Spiritualists. * * * * For one, I 
believe that sjnrits communicate with mortals. I have not changed my 
mind upon this subject since my controversy with Bro. Hunt." 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 229 

Rev. Dr. Eli Ballou's testimony : 

" We believe it as probable tbat all angels in the spirit-world, or in 
the spheres above us, were once men in the flesh ; and that when 
necessary, and under favorable circumstances, angels from the world of 
spirits have and do communicate with the spirits in the flesh." 

Rev. Adin Ballou's testimony : 

On page 38, of a volume published by this clergyman, 
several years since, is found this clear statement — 

" So, then, there is an exquisitely subtle element * * * * communi- 
cable from one soul to another, under appropriate conditions, and thereby 
the two souls come into rapport, as the French call it, or soul-communi- 
cation. The process whereby this is effected is called mesmerising, 
magnetizing or psychologizing. Its results are mesmeric and psycho- 
logical phenomena of every grade and variety, from the lowest som- 
nambulism, to the highest clairvoyance. Again, I ask, does the objector 
believe in all this as demonstrable between human spirits in the flesh ? 
Yes. Very well; so do I. * * * I have laid down, as a part of 
my doctrine, that these mesmeric, clairvoyant, and psychological phe- 
nomena sometimes proceed from spirits in the flesh, and sometimes from 
departed spirits; always, however, in accordance with spiritual laws, 
common, more or less to the whole universe of souls. I have also taken 
the position that phenomena caused by souls in the body sometimes mix 
with those caused by departed souls, and that thus the lower are liable 
to be mistaken for the higher. Here I am but one step ahead of the 
objector in my credulity. He believes in marvels, utterly incredible to 
himself a few years ago, caused by mesmerism, clairvoyance, and psy- 
chological influence, exerted by soul on soul in the flesh. Having been 
strained up by irresistible evidence to this height of faith, he now 
obstinately decies that departed spirits ever mesmerise, magnetize, or 
spiritize susceptible persons in the body ; that they ever exert psycho- 
logic influences over them to render them media ; that they ever cause 
any of the phenomena purporting to be spirit manifestations. Why ? 
Because mesmerism, clairvoyance, and psychological influence take place 
between soul and soul in the body, and these may possibly account for 
all higher phenomena of the same nature. Most lame and impotent 
conclusions ! Some of the phenomena in question may be thus accounted 
for, but not the more important and peculiarly distinctive manifestions. 
* * * Departed spirits have a higher mesmeric, magnetic, or psy- 
chologic power than have mortals of a corresponding grade. Eacts have 
proved this in many remarkable cases. It will yet be demonstrated to 
the conviction of all candid investigators." 



230 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Rev. J. P. Sanford's testimony : 

Those reading the " Monthly Clarion" received this infor- 
mation from the Rev. Moses Hull — 

" The last time we saw Mr. Sanford, (a Universalist clergyman) of 
Iowa, he told a large audience in our tent that he was a Spiritualist. 
Said he : ' Persons may, by the aid of their index finger, succeed in 
turning up their noses at Spiritualists, but it is too late in the day to 
think of hooting four millions of people down.' " 

Rev. H. A. Reid's testimony : 

' ; The real and living verity of the future life and the spirit-world is 
a doctrine which can appeal confidently to the Bible, to history, and. to 
science, for its substantial proof and reasonable confirmation. 

''That the inhabitants of the spirit-realm, both good and bad, can 
and do, under some circumstances, manifest themselves to persons still 
in the flesh, is a doctrine of nature, taught most distinctly in the Bible, 
and proven by the concurrent testimony of every race of mankind, in 
all ages of the world. 

" In the spirit world, those having similar tastes, loves and desires, 
good or bad, associate together by spontaneous mutual attraction or 
affinity. And each spirit is known by all the rest precisely as it is, 
with all its goodness or all its badness unmistakeably discerned by 
every one." 

Rev. Dr. Fisk's testimony : 

" Grod, he said, has use or employment for all the creatures he had 
made : for every saint on earth, for every angel in heaven. He would 
that none be idle. He has a mission for every one. Angels and arch- 
angels, cherubims and seraphims, patriarchs and prophets, apostles and 
reformers, and all the holy hosts of heaven, are his ministering spirits, 
frequently dispatched to minister unto the strangers and sojourners of 
earth. He sends forth these spirits to guide and guard his contrite 
children through the wilderness world to their promised place at his 
right hand. 

" Oh, consoling doctrine ! Angels are around us. The spirits of the 
departed good encamp about our pathway. Who knows how many 
times the sainted spirit of Paul has been our guardian-angel, protecting 
and defending us. Who can tell how often Marah's humble spirit has 
surrounded our thorny pathway, strewing it with heavenly flowers and 
the golden fruits of the tree of life, and perfuming the atmosphere we 
breathe with celestial fragrance. 

" Who knows how frequently the sainted spirits of Benson and 
Watson and Clarke have hovered over our minds, directing them to the 
sound doctrines of the Gospel of Truth ; and how often has the fervent 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 231 

spirit of Wesley inspired us with zeal, and the spirit of Luther with 
holy boldness to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the 
saints. And how often has Bunyan's blessed spirit lingered around our 
path, to lead us on to God. And who knows, brethren, but it is the 
inspiring spirit of the flaming Whitefield, or Hall, or Chalmers, that 
sometimes sets on fire our stammering tongues with heavenly eloqueuce." 

Rev. H. Elkin's testimony : 

" The Bible is full of these revelations, sights and manifestations, 
and if we believe the Bible, why is it not as easy to believe that spirits 
can communicate with men now as anciently ? If spirits ever could 
appear unto men, they can to-day. If man ever had intercourse with 
spirits he may to-day; but no doubt certain physiological and psychial 
conditions are necessary, else all men could hold intercourse. Not all 
men anciently could commune with spirits. Not all men at the present 
time can commune with spirits. But the same faculty which aided 
them to see and commune with spirits anciently, can, if rightly devel- 
oped, aid them to-day ; and modern manifestations are as real as ancient 
ones. 

" Spiritualism comes to the aid of the church and they reject it. It 
supplies to atheists and infidels the lacking evidence of immortality, and 
they receive it. It thus resembles Christianity in its first movements, 
which was rejected by professedly religious men. The doctrine of 
immortality must ultimately rest upon proof, or be rejected. And if 
all the phenomena attending the modern movement be accounted for on 
physiological grounds, without the intervention of spirits, ancient phe- 
nomena will have to pass the same ordeal and receive the same sentence. 
Whatever physiological law will account for involuntary polyglot speak- 
ing and writing moderuly, will account for the speaking in unknown 
tongues anciently. Whatever physiological law will account for the 
modern prophecies, gifts of healing, revelations, poems, hymns and 
doctrines, will account for the ecstacies, prophecies, gifts of healing, 
&c, in ancient times. Whatever physiological law will account for the 
apparitions, or the seeing of spirits, lights, hearing of music, &c, 
modernly, will account for the visions and voices heard anciently. 
Whatever physiological law will account for the lifting and moving of 
tables, pianos, &c. by invisible power, modernly, will account for the 
unbarring of the doors of Paul's prison anciently. Whatever physio- 
logical law will account for John Hocknel's seeing Ann Lee's spirit 
when it left the body, wafted upward in a golden ehariot drawn by 
white horses, and scores of similar cases, when spirits have been seen to 
leave their earthly bodies, wafted upward by a convoy of angels, mod- 
ernly, will account for the translation of Enoch, and Elijah, and the 
ascension of Christ, anciently. Whatever physiological law will account 
for Henry Gordon's being carried through the air, by invisible power 
from a sofa, across the room, and put upon a bed, modernly, will account 
for Jesus' walking upon the sea, anciently." 



232 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Rev. J. H. Tuttle's testimony: 

This Universalist clergyman, reviewing a camp-meeting 
discourse of the Rev. Mr. Mattison, says, inquiringly : 

" How clo you know that the soul, when it leaves the body, departs 
far away ? and does not return ? Solomon says the ' Spirit shall return 
unto G-od who gave it — is GrOD so far away ? One would think so 
from the screaming effort your brethren on the camp-ground made to 
enable him to hear their prayers ! In the Bible, we can point out 
numerous instances where spiritual beings talked and communed with 
mortals; where, too, they assumed a form and were visible. If spirits 
cannot return, how did Moses and Elijah appear to Peter, James and 
John on the Mount? If you reply that this, and other instances of 
the kind mentioned in the Bible, were special interpositions of Provi- 
dence, exceptions to a general law, we ask again, How do you know 
this ? An angel appeared to John the revelator. (See Rev. 22, 8th.) 
If you reply that this was not a spirit which had once been in the flesh, 
then we ask you to read the following and learn your mistake : ' And I 
John saw these things, and heard them; and when I had heard and 
seen, I fell down, to worship before the feet of the angel, which showed 
me these things. Then saith he unto me, see thou do it not: for I am 
thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the Prophets, and of them which 
keep the sayings of this book : ' Paul, in Heb. 1st, 14th, says : ' Are 
they not all, (i. e. angels,) ministering spirits, sent forth to minister 
unto them who shall be heirs of salvation ? ' From these, and other 
passages, it is plain that spirits do come and minister unto us ; and 
therefore, we have little regard for the speculations of man to the 
contrary." 

Rev. W. Ker's testimony : 

The gentleman criticising this clergyman's recently pub- 
lished work, pens the following meaning paragraph : 

" The writer of these pages has, for a length of time, bestowed great 
attention upon the subject, and is in a position to affirm with all confi- 
dence, from his own experience and repeated trials, that the alleged 
phenomena of Spiritualism are, by far the most part, the products 
neither of imposture nor delusion. They are true, and that to the 
fullest extent. Nay, the marvels which he himself has witnessed in the 
private retirement of his own home, with only a few select friends, and 
without having even so much as ever seen a public medium, are in many 
respects fully equal to any of the startling narratives which have 
appeared in print. He has found that there is an intelligence behind, 
or under, those varied manifestations, which can read our inmost 
thoughts; can in many cases truly predict coming events; can tell what 
may be at the moment passing in distant places; can answer mental 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 233 

questions; and which, in his experience, has not only replied correctly 
to those queries, hut even to the secret thoughts and unspoken desires 
which gave rise to them." 

Washington Irving's testimony: 

" What could be more consoling than the idea, that the souls of those 
we once loved were permitted to return and watch over our welfare ? — 
that affectionate and guardian spirits sat by our pillows when we slept, 
keeping a vigil over our most helpless hours ? — that beauty and inno- 
cence which had languished into the tomb, yet smiled unseen around 
us, revealing themselves in those blessed dreams and visions wherein 
we live over again the hours of past endearments ? A belief of this 
kind would, I think, be a new incentive to virtue, rendering us circum- 
spect, even in our most secret moments, from the idea that those we 
once loved and honored were invisible witnesses of all our actions. 

" I see, nothing in it (Spiritualism) that is incompatible with the 
tender and merciful nature of our religion, or revolting to the wishes 
and afFections of the heart. 

*T~ 'T* !fS 3jC . 3JC * 3|C ■ ^ 5jC ■. 3JI 

" My mind has been crowded by fancies concerning these beings. 
Are there indeed such beings ? Is this space between us and the Deity 
filled up by innumerable orders of spiritual beings, forming the same 
gradations between the human soul and divine perfection that we see 
prevailing from humanity down to the merest insect ? It is a sublime 
and beautiful doctrine of the early fathers, that there are guardian 
angels appointed to watch over cities and nations, to take care of good 
men, and to guard and guide the steps of helpless infancy. Even the 
doctrine of departed spirits returning to visit the scenes and beings 
which were dear to them during the body's existence, though it has 
been debased by the absurd superstitions of the vulgar, in itself is 
awfully solemn and sublime." 

' Charlotte Bronte's testimony: 

The biographer of this talented writer, Mrs. Gaskell, 
speaking of her mode of composition in "Jane Eyre," says : 

" I remember, however, many little particulars, which Miss Bronte 
gave me, in answer to my inquiries respecting her mode of composition, 
&c. She said that it was not every day that she could write. Some-, 
times weeks, or even months, elapsed, before she felt that she had any- 
thing to add to that portion of her story, which was already written 
Then, some morning she would waken up, and the progress of her tale 
lay clear and bright before her in distinct vision." 



234 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

These extracts, selected almost at random, reveal hei 
mediumship and Spiritualism : 

" Presentiments are strange things ! and so are sympathies ; and so are 
signs. I never laughed at presentiments in my life ; because 1 have had 
strange ones of my own. * * * 

" Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible 
world and a kingdom of spirits : that world is around us, for it is every- 
where ; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard 
us ; and if we were dying under pain and shame, if scorn smote us on 
all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognize our 
innocence, (if innocent we be,) and God waits only the separation of 
spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we 
ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and 
death is so certain an entrance to happiness — to glory?" 

Her biographer makes the farther record: 

" Some one conversing with her once objected, in my presence, to 
that part of Jane Eyre, in which she hears Rochester's voice crying 
out to her in a great crisis of her life, he being many, many miles 
distant at the time. I do not know what incident was in Miss Bronte's 
recollection, when she replied, in a low voice, drawing in her breath, 
' But it is a true thing; it really happened.' " 

Horace Greeley's testimony : 

Noting the " Recollections of a busy Life," this politician 
and conservative moralist, in reference to attending spiritual 
seances with N". P. Willis, M'lle Jenny Lind, and others 
honored in the literary and musical world, writes : 

" I never saw a ' spirit hand,' though persons in whose veracity I 
have full confidence assure me that they have done so, But I have sat 
with three others around a small table, with every one of our eight 
hands lying plainly, palpably, on that table, and heard rapid writing 
with a pencil on paper, which, perfectly white, we had just previously 
placed under that table ; and have, the next minute, picked up that 
paper with a sensible, straight-forward message of twenty to fifty words 
fairly written thereon. I do not say by whom, or by what said message 
was written ; yet I am quite confident that none of the persons present, 
who were visible to mortal eyes, wrote it. * * 

"The 'mediums' are often children of tender years, who had no 
such training, have no special dexterity, and some of whom are known 
to be awkward and clumsy in their movements. The jugglery hypotlv 
esis utterly fails to account for occurrences which I have personally 
witnessed, to say nothing of others. 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 235 

" The failures of the ' mediums ' were more convincing to my mind 
than their successes. A juggler can do nearly as well at one time as 
another; but I have known the most eminent ' mediums' spend a long 
evening in trying to evoke the ' spiritual phenomena,' without a gleam 
of success. I have known this to occur when they were particularly 
anxious — and for obviously good reasons — to astound and convince 
those who were present and expectant; yet not even the faintest ' rap' 
could they scare up. Had they been jugglers they, could not have 
failed so utterly, ignominiously. * * * All that we have learned 
of them (the spirits) has added little or nothing to our knowledge, 
unless it be enabling us to answer with more confidence, that old, 
momentous question, If a man die, shall he live again ? The only 
certain conclusion to which my mind has been led in the premises, is 
forcibly set forth by Shakespeare in the words of the Danish prince : 

' There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' " 

Margaret Fuller's testimony: 

'' As to the power of holding intercourse with spirits emancipated 
from our present sphere, we see no reason why it should not exist, and 
do some reason why it should rarely be developed, but none why it 
should not sometimes. These spirits are, we all believe, existent some- 
how ; and there seems to be no good reason why a person in spiritual 
nearness to them, whom such intercourse cannot agitate or engross so 
that he cannot walk steadily in his present path, should not enjoy it 
when of use to him." 

Gerritt Smith's testimony : 

No mortal — brave, free and generous as this life-long 
reformer — could be a sectarist. Referring to his " Sermons 
and Speeches" — p. 39-40 — we find this statement: 

" We are charged with being Spiritualists. Some of us are, and 
some of us are not Spiritualists. But what if we all were — still might 
we not all be Christians ? To be a Spiritualist — that is, to believe that 
spirits can communicate with us — is no proof that a man is, or is not, a 
Christian. His cordial reception, as evidenced in his life, of the great 
essential moral truths which come to him, whether in communications 
from spirits or from any other source — this, and this alone, proves that 
he is a Christian. If Spiritualism has been the occasion of harm to 
some, nevertheless there are others in whom it has wrought good. We 
have neighbors, whose religious life has been greatly improved by their 
interest in Spiritualism. * * * A favorite, and certainly a very 
winning doctrine of the Spiritualists, is that a wicked man attracts wicked 
spirits, and a good man good ones. How protective, purifying, and every 



236 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

way happy, must be its influence on him who truly believes it ! How 
efficient the motive it furnishes to avoid a bad and pursue a good life ! 
* * I must not fail to add, in this connection, that the Spiritualists 
I met in mj tours through the State, last fall, were nearly all reformers. 
They had broken off from both political and ecclesiastical parties, and 
were earnestly and openly devoting themselves to the abolition of sec- 
tarianism, slavery, intemperance, and other wrongs. I have no doubt 
that, in proportion to their numbers, Spiritualists cast tenfold as many 
votes for the abolition and temperance ticket as did others. Surely 
such a fact is highly commendatory of the influence of Spiritualism. 

Mrs. Stanton, of the Revolution, writing of a visit to Mrs. 
Gerritt Smith and her sanctuary sacred to angel converse, 
says : 

" This is Ann Fitzhugh, the wife of Gerritt Smith, and this is the 
place where she communes with the invisible world, with the spirits of 
just men and women made perfect through suffering. Here she reads 
Davis and Harris, and discusses the doctrines of modern Spiritualism 
in which she is a firm believer." 

William Lloyd Garrison's testimony: 

" As the manifestations have spread from house to house, from city 
to city, from one part of the country to the other, across the Atlantic 
into Europe, till now the civilized world is compelled to acknowledge 
their reality, however diverse in accounting for them — as these mani- 
festations continue to increase in variety and power, so that all suspicion 
of trick or imposture becomes simply absurd and preposterous — and as 
every attempt to find a solution for them in some physical theory relat- 
ing to electricity, the odic force, clairvoyance, and the like, has thus far 
proved abortive — it becomes every intelligent mind to enter into an 
investigation of them with candor and fairness, as opportunity may offer, 
and to bear such testimony in regard to them as the fiicts may warrant, 
no matter what ridicule it may excite on the part of the uninformed or 
skeptical. As for ourselves, we have been in no haste to jump to a 
conclusion in regard to phenomena so universally diffused and of so 
extraordinary a character. For the last three years we have kept pace 
with nearly all that has been published on the subject; and we have 
witnessed, at various times, many surprising ' manifestations ; ' and our 
conviction is, that they cannot be accounted for on any other theory 
than that of spiritual agency." 

Rev. Dr. G. Townsend's testimony: 

" So completely has the skeptical philosophy of the day pervaded 
society, that even among professed Christians, he would now be esteemed 
a visionary who should venture to declare his belief in this most favorite 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 237 

tenet of the ancient Church. The early fathers regarded the ministry 
of angels as a consoling and beautiful doctrine, and so much at that 
time was it held in veneration, that the founders of Christianity cau- 
tioned their early converts against permitting their reverence to degen- 
erate into adoration. We now go to the opposite extreme, and seldom 
think of their existence; yet what is to be found in this belief, even if 
the Scriptures had not revealed it, which is contrary to reason ? " 

Rev. Dr. A. Barne's testimony : 

" In this doctrine, the ministry of spirits, there is nothing absurd. 
It is no more impossible that angels should be employed to aid men, 
than that one man should aid another; certainly not as impossible as 
that the Son of God should come down not to be ministered unto, but 
to minister. Angelic ministration ' constitutes the beauty of the moral 
arrangements on earth.' ' Is there any impropriety in supposing that 
they do now what the Bible says they ever have done ? " 

The London Times reported the Bishop as using the 
following language, in a Sunday sermon, at Westminster 
Abbey : 

" There were many important lessons to be gathered from Jacob's 
dream. The especial lesson taught was that God constantly controlled 
our thoughts, and that we are constantly in connection with the world 
of spirits, whilst we think we are far away amid earthly things 
He entreated those whose thoughts turned heavenward not to check 
them, for they might be certain that they are enlightened by the same 
glorious presences which cheered Jacob in the wilderness." 

Victor Hugo's testimony : 

The exiled, yet loved ! Hugo's life has been a strange 
one — so gentle, so rich and radiant. All nature seems to 
have poured into him her tributary streams of imagery, 
sympathy, beauty and poetry. Thus organized, it is impos- 
sible for him to be other than a Spiritualist. In his " Toilers 
of the Sea," he writes : 

" There is a time when the unknown reveals itself in a mysterious 
way to the spirit of man. A sudden rent in the veil of darkness will 
make manifest things hitherto unseen, and then close again upon the 
mysteries within. Such visions have occasionally the power to effect a 
transfiguration in those whom they visit. They convert a poor camel- 
driver into a Mahomet; a peasant girl tending her goats into a Joan 
of Arc. Solitude generates a certain amount of sublime exaltation. * 
* * A mysterious lucidity of mind results, which converts the student 



238 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

into a seer, and the poet into a prophet; herein we find a key to the 
mysteries of Horeb, and Elron, and Ombos ; to the intoxication of 
Castalian laurels, the revelations of the month Bnsion. Hence, too, we 
have Pelcia at Dodona; Phemonae at Delphos ; Trophonius in Zebadea; 
Ezekiel on the Chebar; and Jerome in the Thepais * * * Luther 
holding converse with devils in his garret at Wittenburgh; Pascal 
shutting out the view of the infernal regions with the screen of his 
cabinet ; the African Obi conversing with the white-faced God, Bossum, 
are each and all the same phenomena, diversely interpreted by the minds 
in which they manifest themselves, according to their capacity and 
power. Luther and Pascal were grand, and are grand still." 

In a funeral address delivered at the interment of Emily 
De Putren, this French, author said most feelingly : 

" Death is the greatest of liberties; it is also the furthest progress. 
Death is a higher step for all who have lived upon its height. Dazzling 
and holy every one receives his increase, everything is transfigured in the 
light and by the light. He who has been no more than virtuous on earth 
becomes beauteous ; he who has only been beauteous becomes sublime, 
and he who has only been sublime becomes good. * * * The soul, 
the marvel of this great celestial departure which we call death, is here. 
Those who that depart still remain near us — they are in a world of light, 
but they as tender witnesses hover about our world of darkness. * * * 
The dead are invisible, but they are not absent." 

William Howitt's testimony : 

This eminent man and distinguished author, so scholarly 
in attainment and affluent in classical allusion, continually 
testifies — a living apostle — to a present communion with the 
spirit- world. He wrote thus vigorously last season to the 
English Dunfermline Press: 

* * * * " Sir — Who are the men who have in every country 
embraced Spiritualism ? The rabble ? the ignorant ? the fanatic ?. By 
no means. But the most intelligent and able men of all classes. When 
such is the case, surely it becomes the ' majority of reflecting men,' to 
use the words of your editor, to reflect on these facts. Let numbers go 
for nothing ; but, when the numbers add also first rate position, pre-emi- 
nent abilities, largest experience of men and their doings, weight of moral, 
religious, scientific, and political character, then the man who does not 
look into what these declare to be truth, is not a reflecting, but a very 
foolish and prejudiced man. Now, it is very remarkable that, when we 
proceed to enumerate the leading men who have embraced modern Spir- 
itualism, we begin also to enumerate the pre-eminent intellects and char- 
acters of the age. In America you justly say that the shrewd and honest 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 239 

Abraham Lincoln was a Spiritualist. He was a devoted one. So also 
were, and are, the Hon. Robert Dale Owen and Judge Edmonds ; so was 
Professor Hare. You are right in all these particulars. In fact, almost 
every eminent man in the American Government is a Spiritualist. Gar- 
rison, whom the anti-Spiritualists were so lately and enthusiastically fete- 
ing in England, for his zealous services in the extinction of negro slavery, 
is an avowed Spiritualist. Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York 
Tribune, a man whose masterly, political reasoning has done more than 
any man to direct the course of American politics, is a Spiritualist. 
Longfellow, the poet, now in England, and just treated with the highest 
honors by the University of Cambridge, and about to be feted by the 
whole literary world of England, is, and has long and openly been, a 
Spiritualist. But I might run over the majority of the great names of 
America. Turn to France. The shrewd Emperor, the illustrious Victor 
Hugo, the sage and able statesman Guizot, one of the most powerful 
champions of Christianity, are Spiritualists. So is Garibaldi, in Italy. 
In England, you might name a very long and distinguished list of men 
and women, of all classes, Spiritualists. If you had the authority you 
might mention names which would startle no little those who affect to 
sneer at Spiritualism. It is confidently said that a Spiritualist sits on 
the throne of these realms, as we know that such do sit on those of the 
greatest nations of Europe. We know that the members of some of the 
chief ducal houses of Scotland, and of the noble houses of Ireland and 
England, are Spiritualists. Are all these people likely to plunge their 
heads and their reputations into an unpopular cause without first looking 
well into it? But then, say the opponents, the scientific don't affect it. 
They must greatly qualify this assertion, for many and eminent scientific 
men have had the sense and the courage to look into it, and have found 
it a great truth. The editor of the Dunfermline Press remarks on your 
observations regarding Robert Chambers, that Chambers' Journal of the 
13th of May last, has a certain article not flattering to Spiritualism. 
True, but not the less is Robert Chambers an avowed Spirittiatist, and 
boldly came forward on the Home and Lyon trial, to express his faith in 
Mr. Home. The editor might quote articles in the Times, the Standard, 
the Star, and the Daily Telegraph, against Spiritualism, y yet it is a well- 
known fact that on all these journals some of their ablest writers are 
Spiritualists ; but is it not always prudent for a man to say what he is. 
This is not an age in love with martyrdom. 

" Numbers of scientific men have embraced Spiritualism. Dr. Hare, 
mentioned by you, was a great electrician, rated by the Americans little, 
if any, inferior to Faraday. He did exactly what people now want 
scientific men to do. He thought Spiritualism a humbug, and went 
regularly into an inquiry in order to expose it. But it did — as it has 
done in every case that I have heard of, where scientific men have gone 
candidly and fairly into the examination — after two years of testing and 
proving, convince him of its truth. Dr. Elliotson, a very scientific 
man, and for years violently opposed to Spiritualism, so soon as he was 



240 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

willing to inquire, became convinced, and now blesses God for the know- 
ledge of it. Dr. Ashburner, bis fellow editor of the Zoist, has also 
long been an avowed Spiritualist. Mr. Alfred Wallace, a scientific 
man and excellent naturalist, who was on the Amazon with Mr. Bates, 
has published his conviction of its truth. Sir Charles Wheatstone, 
some time ago, on seeing some remarkable phenomena in his own house, 
declared them real. And just now, on the Home and Lyon trial, the 
public have seen Mr. Varley, a man of first rate science, the electrician 
to the Electric and International and the Atlantic Telegraph Companies, 
come forward and make afiidavit of his having investigated the facts of 
Spiritualism, and found them real. Now, after such cases, why this 
continual cry out for examination by scientific men ? Scientific men of 
the first stamp have examined and reported that it is a great fact. Sci- 
entific men by the hundred and the thousand have done it, and yet the 
crowd go on crying for a scientific man. Why ? Simply because it is 
much easier to open their mouths and bleat as sheep do in a flock than 
exert their minds and their senses. It is time that all this folly had an 
end. There are now more Spiritualists than would populate Scotland 
seven times over at its present scale of population ; and surely the testi- 
mony of such a multitude, including statesmen, philosophers, historians, 
and scientific men, too, is as absolutely decisive as any mortal matter can 
be. And pray, my good friend, don't trouble yourself that your neigh- 
bors call you mad. You are mad in most excellent company. All the 
great men of all ages who have introduced or accepted new ideas were 
mad in the eyes of their cotemporaries. As I have said, Socrates and 
Christ and St. Paul were mad ; Galileo was mad ; De Caus was mad ; 
Thomas Cray, who first advocated railways, was declared by the Edin- 
burgh Review mad as a march hare. They are the illustrious tribe of 
madmen by whom the world is propelled, widened as by Columbus, and 
enlightened as by Bacon, Newton, Des Cartes, and the rest of them, who 
were all declared mad in their turn. And don't be anxious about Spir- 
itualism. From the first moment of its appearance to this, it has moved 
on totally iinconcerned and unharmed amidst every species of opposition, 
misrepresentation, lying, and obstruction, and yet has daily and hourly 
grown, and spread, and strengthened, as if no such evil influences were 
assailing it. Like the sun, it has traveled on its course unconscious of 
the clouds beneath it. Like the ocean, it has rolled in billows over the 
slimy creatures at its bottom, and dashed its majestic waves over every 
proud man who dared to tread within its limits. And whence comes 
this ? Obviously, from the hand which is behind it — the hand of the 
Great Ruler of the Universe. For my part, having long perceived this 
great fact, I have ceased to care what people say or do against Spirit- 
ualism ; to care who believes or does not believe ; who comes into it or 
stays out ; certain that it is as much a part of God's economy of the 
universe as the light of the sun, and will, therefore, go on and do ita 
work." 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 241 

Robert Bell's testimony : 

This distinguished dramatist, novelist and Spiritualist, of 
England, wrote one of the most graphic notices ever penned 
upon the subject of spiritual phenomena, describing the inci- 
dents occurring in a seance of Mr. Home : 

" This Mr. Thackeray, then editor of the Cornhill Magazine, ventured 
to publish in the eighth number of that journal (August, 1860), an 
article entitled Stranger than Fiction. 

" Mr. Thackeray, in a note, spoke of the writer ' as a friend of twenty- 
five years standing, for whose good faith and honorable character he 
would vouch.' Thackeray was himself a believer in Spiritualism, and 
with good reason. He had, I am told, evidence of its reality in his own 
family which made belief irresistible. Mr. Bell's narrative created great 
commotion in the literary world. 

" It is true that the writer was a man of good faith and honorable 
character, who simply described what he and several others who were 
present had seen in a lady's drawing-room. His assailants, however, 
knew that it was a ' great imposture.' Mr. Thackeray and Mr. Bell 
thereafter kept their knowledge of spiritual subjects to themselves; but 
Mr. Bell had become too firm a convert to be indifferent to the spread 
of the great truth, and it was he who quietly got together the committee 
which met in Mr. Boucicault's drawing-room to investigate the claims of 
the Davenports 5 and that committee, composed of twenty-four leading 
men in science and literature, it will be recollected, declared upon the 
suggestion of Lord Bury, that ' there was no trickery in any form, no 
confederates nor machinery, and certainly the phenomena which had taken 
place in their presence were not the product of legerdemain.' " — London 
Spiritual Magazine. 

Rev. E. C. Towne's testimony : 

Preaching the funeral sermon of the great and good John 
Pierpont, poet reformer, and Spiritualist, Mr. Towne said : 

" Other men might speak of peace ; he loved it not less than they, but 
so long as there was defiant wrong on every hand, he wished to be able 
to say, ' I have fought the good fight — I have kept the faith.' He can 
say this now, as few that lived with him can. The crown of the faithful 
confessor is his. Higher than poet, scholar, or orator, stands the honest 
man. with his valiant confession of holy truth. When his eloquence is 
forgotten, when his verses are no more read, the undefiled integrity of 
John Pierpont will shine like a star in the memory of men. 

" Comparing our friend's position as a Spiritualist with that of a crowd 
of most able men throughout Christendom who adhere to Bomish or 
Protestant orthodoxy, this confessor of faith, somewhat desmsed, stands 
16 



242 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

hio;h above them all. It is necessary here to put by the common and 
more imperfect manifestations of Spiritualism, and also to concede to a 
man of able mind a large liberty of judgment. The common utterances 
ui any faith would discredit it with one who had no sympathy with it. 
If a man of mind and character adopts a faith which is supposed base- 
less, it is necessary to assume that there may be some mistake in this 
supposition. He would be singularly at fault who should think it neces- 
sary to explain in the way of apology Mr. Pierpont's adherence to Spir- 
itualism. The fact does not at all abate from his credit, but on iho 
contrary to his honor. 

" It is too early to vindicate, without extended explanation, the provi- 
dential significance of the movement known as Spiritualism. I am mu 
s.myself competent to adequately criticise this movement. But I have no 
doubt whatever that it is to become the most living and most valuable 
development of modern Christianity. It is working up from the people, 
from those to whom no Church penetrated, and in the day of its full 
power it will be a force in religious progress such as no Church has been. 
It will bring to all the Churches new life, in faith, hope and love. The 
day will come when the devotion of our friend to this movement will 
mark him as one on whom a prophetic spirit rested. It was in the high 
courage of a noble confessor that he took this step, as all the other great 
steps of his life." 

Abraham Lincoln, generally considered an infidel by 
evangelical denominations, was a member of no churchy and 
made no profession of religion. His tendencies were all 
towards Spiritualism and German Rationalism, as his real 
heart-friends unhesitatingly testify. That he invited media 
into his presence, attended seances? and devoted' not a little 
time to the investigation of Spiritualism, none of even 
ordinary information upon the subject deny. Judge Edmonds 
delivering an oration in Hope Chapel upon the life of the 
martyred President, spoke of his close sympathy with him 
in that divine philosophy — the ministry of spirits. Mr. 
Lincoln's frequent presentiments were to himself author- 
itative prophecies : 

" In Judge Pierpont's address to the jury at the Surratt trial, he said 1 
he now came to a strange act in this dark drama— strange, though not 
new — so wonderful that it seems to come from beyond the veil that sepa- 
rates us from death. It is not new, but it is strange. All governments 
are of God, and for some wise purpose the Great Ruler of all, by pre- 
sentiments, portents, bodings, and by dreams, sends some shadowy 
warning of a coming dawn when a great disaster is to befall a nation. 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — CLERICAL AND LITERARY. 243 

So was it in the days of Saul — when Caesar was killed — when Brutus 
died at Phillippi — so was it when Christ was crucified — so was it when 
Harold fell at the battle of Hastings — so was it when the Czar was 
assassinated — so was it before the bloody death of Abraham Lincoln, 
President of the United States. In the life of Caesar, by De Quincy, in 
the life of Pompey, by Plutarch, is given the portents that came to warn 
Pompey. Here it is we find how Caesar was warned. We find it true 
in all cases, and never in the whole history of the world has there been 
a single instance when the assassins of the head of the movement have 
not been brought to punishment. The assassin of a ruler never has 
escaped, though he has taken ' the wings of the morning and fled to the 
uttermost parts of the earth.' On the morning of April 14th, Mr. Lin- 
coln called his cabinet together. He had reason to be joyful, but he was 
anxious to hear from Sherman. Grant was here, and he said ' Sherman 
was all right ; > but Mr. Lincoln feared, and related a dream which he 
had the night before — a dream which he had previous to Chancellors- 
ville and Stone River, and whenever a disaster had happened. The 
members of the Cabinet who heard that relation will never forget it. 
A few hours afterward Sherman was not heard from — but the dream was 
fulfilled. A disaster had befallen the government, and Mr. Lincoln's 
spirit returned to the God who gave it." 

Incontrovertible evidences in confirmation of spiritual 
presences in our midst to impress, inspire and communicate 
— testimonies from clerical and literary gentlemen — from 
poets, authors, priests, judges and honored senators — are 
nearly as numberless as stars in the firmament. Put the 
inquiry directly, however, to some of the clergymen — Do 
you believe in Spiritualism ? — believe that departed spirits 
communicate with friends on earth? — $nd piously declaring 
against " physical manifestations " by way of sprinkling a 
few grains of incense upon the altar of a church-begging 
respectability, they will answer — " We believe in the Bible 
ministry of angels.''" Down on this slimy policy — this con- 
summate cowardice ! Stirringly writes the English poet, 
G erald Massey : 

"Out of the light, ye Priests, nor fling 
Your dark, cold shadows on us longer ! 
Aside ! thou world-wide curse, call'd king ! 
The people's step is quicker, stronger. 
There's a Divinity within 
That makes men great, whene'er they will it ! 



244 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

God works with all who dare to win, 
And the time has come — to reveal it — 

The People's Advent's coming ! " 

Spiritualism has incarnated itself into our literature, art, 
music, philosophy and legislation ; and it gathers strength 
and courtly symmetry as it sweeps through the land, destined 
to become the universal religion of the enlightened world, 

"They builded wiser than they knew ; 
The conscious stone to beauty grew." 



V 



ECTURE VIII. 



ExEGETICAL S 



XEGETICAL OPIRITUALIS M. 



pHAPTEF^ XXIV. 



POETIC TESTIMONY. 



"Sounding through the dreamy dimness 
Where I faint and weary lay, 
Spake a poet .- J I will lead thee 
To the land of songs to-day.' " 

Sweet and heavenly sings the Poet Laureate of England : 

4 How pure at heart and sound in head, 
With what divine affections bold 
Should be the man whose thought would hold 
An hour's -communion with the dead. 

In yain shalt thou, or any, call 

The spirits from their golden day, 

Except, like them, thou too canst say 
My spirit is at peace with all." 

Exalted minds dwell in the element ot the spiritual. 
The spiritual is the real. Poets are the soul's prophets. 
Unlike metaphysicians, they give us the product of their 
spiritual life and intuitive insight, and appeal to the con- 
sciousness and deep sympathies of humanity for the verifi- 
cation. Poets are divinity-appointed interpreters, employing 
the shadows of the outer world to reveal the substance of the 
world within. From the Vedic hymns of the Hindoos their 
glory gleams all along the pages of thought and culture. 
Brain, sunned from heaven, pen afire with truth, their lines 
ever tender, glow with the fadeless radiance of immortal 

247 



248 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

love. Divest God of the attribute of love — disrobe liter- 
ature of its ideal — strip poetry of its Spiritualism, and the 
residuum is shells — nothing but shells. The nature-poet of 
Galilee, Jesus, walked under Syrian skies a Spiritualist, 
guarded by a legion of angels. 

Want of space warrants but a few quotations from the 
rich poesy fields of Spiritualism. Grand this apostrophe of 
Coleridge : 

"Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er 
With untried gaze the immeasurable fount, 
Ebullient with creative Deity ! 
And ye of plastic power, that interfused 
Roll through the grosser and material mass 
In organizing surge ! Holies of God ! " 

Longfellow's testimony : 

"Some men there are, I have known such, who think 
That the two worlds — the seen and the unseen, 
The world of matter and the world of spirit — 
Are like the hemispheres upon our maps, 
And touch each other only at a point. 
But these two worlds are not divided thus, 
Save for the purpose of common speech. 
They form one globe, in which the parted seas 
All flow together and are intermingled, 
While the great continents remain distinct." 
******* 

"The spiritual world 
Lies all about us, and its avenues 
Are open to the unseen feet of phantoms 
That come and go, and we perceive them not 
Save by their influence, or when at times 
A most mysterious Providence permits them 
To manifest themselves to mortal eyes." 
****** 

"A drowsiness is stealing over me 
Which is not sleep ; for, though I close mine eyes, 
/ am awake, and in another world. 
Dim faces of the dead and of the absent 
Come floating up before me." 
***** 

"When the hours of day are numbered, 
And the voices of the night 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — POETIC TESTIMONY. 249 

Wake the better soul that slumber'd, 4 

To a holy, calm delight; 
Ere the evening lamps are lighted, 

And like phantoms grim and tall, 
Shadows from the fitful fire-light, 

Dance upon the parlor wall — 

Then the forms of the departed 

Enter at the open door ; 
The beloved ones, the true hearted, 

Come to visit me once more; 
And with them the Being Beauteous, 

Who unto my youth was given 
More than all things else to love me, 

And is now a saint in heaven. 

With a slow and noiseless footstep 

Comes that messenger divine, 
Takes the vacant chair beside me, 

Lays her gentle hand in mine, 
And she sits and gazes at me, 

With those deep and tender eyes, 
Like the stars, so still and saint-like, 

Looking downward from the skies." 
****** 
— "As the moon from some dark gate or cloud 

Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light 
Across whose trembling planks our mem'ries crowd 

Into the realm of mystery and light — 

So from the world of spirits there descends 
A bridge of light, connecting it with this, • 

O'er whose unsteady floor, that swayH and bends, 
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss." 

Ph<ebe Cary's testimony : 

That influential weekly, the New York Independent, relat- 
ing the spiritual experiences of Cowper, subjoins some lines 
from Miss Cary's pen, at once poetic and appropriate: 

" The most important events of Cowper 's latter years were audibly 
announced to him before they occurred. We find him writing of Mrs. 
Urwin's ' approaching death,' when her health, although feeble, was not 
such as to occasion alarm. His lucid intervals, and the return of his 
disorder, were announced to him in the same remarkable manner. 



250 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

"The pillow by his tear-drops wet, 

The stoniest couch that heard his cries, 
Had near a golden ladder set 

That touched the skies. 

And at the morning on his bed, 

And in sweet visions of the night, 
Angels, descending, comforted 

His soul with light. 

****** 

And, as the glory thus discerned 

His heart desired, with strong desire; 
By seraphs touched, his lips have burned 
With sacred fire. 

As ravens to Elijah bare, 

At morn and eve, the promised bread; 
So by the spirits of the air 

His soul was fed." 

Mrs. M. A. Livermore's testimony : 

The glory of genuine poets trails all along the eras of art 
and culture. Their inspirations are comparable to dewdrops 
dripping from the leaves of the " Tree of Life." The gifted 
Mrs. Livermore, wife of Rev. D. P. Livermore, and assistant 
editor of the New Covenant, sings the principles of Spiritualism 
in these lines : 

"List thee, father: 'twas last evening as I lay upon my bed, 
Thinking of my sainted mother, whom they hid among the dead, 
Till my tears bedewed the pillow, as though wet with dropping rain, 
And I prayed aloud in anguish that she might come back again — 

'Twas just then, as I lay weeping, that the beautiful angel came, 
And her voice was fraught with music as she called me by my name; 
And her robe seemed woven sunbeams, 'twas so soft and dear and bright, 
And her fair, high brow was circled by a diadem of light." 

Describing the brightness of the shining angel mother, the 
imprinted kiss and her own calm, happy sensations, she thus 
continues: 

"And she spoke — I cannot tell thee all the blessed angel said 
As she bent above my pillow and kept watch beside my bed ; 
But of heavenly things she told me — of a liarht and lovely land, 
Where there dwelleth angel- children many a fair and spotless band. 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — POETIC TESTIMONY. 251 

And she said such flowers bloom there as we never see below, 
Rosier than the hues of sunset, brighter than the rain's fair brow ; 
And such gushing strains of music swell along the fragrant air, 
As will soothe the ransomed spirit when released from earthly care." 

Milton's testimony : 

"Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth unseen, 
Both when we wake and when we sleep." 

Tennyson's testimony : 

In that spiritual biography, " In Memoriam," is mirrored 
the various changes of a poet's love and tenderness upon the 
earthly loss of a friend. Death he considers an upward 
flight — the leaving of a mortal garment, a ruined chrysalis, 
a shattered temple. 

The poems of this gifted son of song present a type of 
Spiritualism, as beautiful as philosophical : 

"God's finger touch'd him, and he slept ! 

The great Intelligences fair 

That range above our mortal state, 

In circle round the blessed gate, 
Received and gave him welcome there.; 

And led him through the blissful .climes, 

And show'd him in the fountain fresh 

All knowledge that the sons of flesh 
Shall gather in the cycled itimes. 

****** 
And he the much-beloved again, 
A lord of large experience, train 
To riper growth the mind and will : 

And what delights can equal those 
That stir the spirit's inner deeps, 
When .one that loves but knows not, reaps 

A truth from one that loves and knows ? 

If such a dreamy touch should fall, 

Oh, turn thee round, resolve the doubt, 

My guardian angel will speak out 
In that high place, and tell thee all. 



252 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

If any vision should reveal 

Thy likeness, I might count it vain 
As but the canker of the brain; 

Yea, though it spake and made appeal 

To chances where our lots were cast 
Together in the days behind, 
I might but say, I hear a wind 

Of memory murmuring the past. 

Yea, though it spake and bared to view 
A fact within the coming year; 
And though the months, revolving near, 

Should prove the phantom-warning true, 

They might not seem thy prophecies, 
But spiritual presentiments ! 
* * -x- * * * * 

Descend, and touch, and enter; hear 

The wish too strong for words to name ; 
That in this blindness of the frame 

My ghost may feel that time is near. 

Come — not in watches of the night, 

But where the sunbeam broodeth warm 
Come, beauteous in thine after form, 

And like a finer light in light. 

Be near us when we climb or fall : 

Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
With larger other eyes than ours, 

To mako allowance for us all. 



And all at once it seem'd at last 
His living soul was flashed on mine, 

And mine in his was wound, and whirl'd 
About empyreal heights of thought, 
And came on that which is, and caught 

The deep pulsations of the world." 



Whittier's testimony 



'With silence only as their benediction 

God's angels come, 
Where, in the shadow of a great affliction, 

The soul sits dumb " 
***** 



MODERN SPIRITUALISM — POETIC TESTIMONY. 253 

"Where cool and long the shadows grow, 

I walk to meet the night that soon. 
Shall shape and shadow overflow; 

I cannot feel that thou art far, 

Since near at need the angels are ; 

And when the sunset gates unbar, 
Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 

And, white against the evening star, 
The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? " 

***** 
"There are, who, like the seers of old 
Can see the helpers, God has sent, 
And how life's rugged mountain side 
Is white with many an angel tent." 

Lowell's testimony : 

"One day, as Ambrose was seeking the truth 
In his lonely walk, he saw a youth 
Resting himself in the shade of a tree; 
It had never been given him to see 
So shining a face, and the good man thought 
'Twere a pity he should not believe as he ought. 
****** 

Now there bubbled beside them where they stood, 

A fountain of waters sweet and good : 

The youth to the streamlet's brink drew near, 

Saying, 4 Ambrose, thou maker of creeds, look here ! ' 

Six vases of crystal then he took 

And 6et them along the edge of the brook." 

Discoursing of the figure of the vases, and the water 
assuming different forms, the poet continues — 

"When Ambrose looked up, he stood all alone — 
The youth, and the stream, and the vases were gone ; 
But he knew by a sense of humbled grace, 
He had talked with an Angel, fact to face, 
And felt his heart change inwardly, ' 
As he fell on his knees beneath a tree." 



Chapter xxv. 






EXISTENCE OF GOD, 



41 The people were astonished at his doctrine." — Matthew. 

"My doctrine shall drop as the rain ; 
My speech shall distil as the dew £ 
As the small rain upon the tender herb, 
And as the showers upon the grass/' — Jehokah. 

"As other men hare creeds, so I have mine ; 
I keep the holy faith in God, in man, 
And in the angels ministrant between." — Tilton. 

"I hold a faith more dear to me 
Than earth's rieh mines, or fame's proud treasure, — 

****** 

A faith that plucks from death its sting ; 

Communes with angels every day, 

Sees God, the good in everything, 

Where Truth Eternal holds her sway." — Powell. 

Reason pertains to God; reasonings, Avith their inductive 
and deductive methods, to progressive man. Moral freedom 
is liberty of action, achieved in accordance with the divine 
forces of our being and the laws of the Infinite. The sphere 
of freedom is the relative. It stands related to the absolute, 
something as the varying edd}^ to the deep, clear, rolling 
river, destined to sweep onward to the ocean. 

Belief is an assent of the mind to certain propositions. It 
is based principally upon testimony. Sufficient evidences 
compel it; a lack of demonstration precludes any rational 

254 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM EXISTENCE OF GOD. ZOO 

belief. The reasonableness of evidence is the soul of evi- 
dence, and the highest authority that any individual can 
possibly have, is the voiced command of God in his own 
soul. 

Spiritualists have no authoritative book-oracles, nor pet- 
rified Apostles' creeds to be interpreted by cowled priests or 
inhered pontiffs. They bow to no kingly master — Chrishna, 
Jesus nor John. They trust in no external signs, ceremo- 
nies or institutional law-logic, scriptural or secular, for 
salvation. They rely upon no wafers, sacramental altars red 
with the crimsoned currents of slain goats, kids or Christs, 
to remove the legitimate consequences that result from 
infringements of natural law. They acknowledge no eccle- 
siastical authority, nor lean upon clergymen or popes, Romish 
or American, for their knowledge of those spiritual matters 
that relate to immortality and eternity. 

In giving general doctrinal statements, then, we define not 
for such Spiritualists as the King of Bavaria or Napoleon of 
France, or Garabaldi of Italy ; not for the Howitts and Wil- 
kinsons of England ; not for Senator Wade and other hono- 
rable members of Congress; not for Robert Dale Owen, 
Prof. Upham or Col. Higginson ; not for numbers of the 
most celebrated judges, jurists, poets and writers of the age; 
not for Theodore Tilton's " many honored members in evan- 
gelical churches who are Spiritualists;" neither for Judge 
Edmond's estimated " eleven millions of believers " in this 
country ; but for ourself only, with an eye to the usually 
accepted opinions of the main body, and are therefore alone 
responsible for these doctrines and definitions. 

Ignoring the fetich gods of Africa — the repenting, jealous 
god of Judaism — the changing, angry-getting god of Cathol- 
icism, the partial, malicious god of Galvanism — the mascu- 
line, miracle-working god of TJniversalisrn — we find infinitely 
higher conceptions of Deity in the definitions of Plato, 
Proclus, Jesus, John, Mahomet, Parker and Davis : 

" Of good there is one eternal, definite and universal Cause — the 
Infinite Soul." 



256 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

" Grod is spirit, and spirit is causation underlying all things." 

" Grod is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in 
spirit and in truth." 

" G-od is love." 

" There is one God." 

" To GJ-od — our Father, and our Mother, too — will we ascribe all 
praise." 

"The great positive mind of the universe — Father Grod and Mother 
Nature." 

Those accepting the Spiritual Philosophy believe in the 
Divine Existence, the Infinite Esse, embodying and enzoning 
all principles of mind and properties of matter; all wisdom 
and love; life and motion; God manifest in everything from 
sands to solar systems. This is the spontaneous concession 
of the world's consciousness. Egypt's Osiris, India's Brahma, 
Judea's Jehovah, the Grecian's Jupiter, the Mussulman's 
Allah, the Platonist's All-Good, the Theist's Deity, the Chris- 
tian's Our Father, the Northman's Odin, the Indian's Great 
Spirit, express more than glimmerings of universal beliefs 
in that God whose altars are mountains and oceans, and 
whose pulpits are fields, earths, orbs and circling systems, 
perfect in order, musical in their marches, and flaming with 
holiest praises. 

Rejecting the human-shaped, prayer-idolized, personal God 
of evangelical theologians, — because personality logically 
implies locality, and whatever becomes localized in space is 
necessarily limited and imperfect — to us, God is the Infinite 
Spirit; Soul of all things; the incarnate Life-Principle of 
the universe; impersonal, incomprehensible, undefinable, and 
yet immanent in dewdrops that glitter and shells that shine 
— in stars that sail through silver seas, and angels that 
delight to do the immutable will. When we designate God 
as the Infinite spirit-presence and substance of universal 
Nature, from whose eternally-flowing life wondrous systems 
of worlds have been evolved, we mean to imply, in the aflir- 
mation, all divine principles, attributes, qualities and forces, 
positive and negative — Spirit, as spirit-substance, and matter 
as physical substance, or a solidified form of force, the former 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — EXISTENCE OF GOD. 257 

depending upon the latter, for its manifestations. The 
masculine alone cannot create. There was never a higher 
formation without the two forces — positive and negative. 

The progress of matter is through motion, organization, 
segregation, accretion, disintegration, and re-combinations 
reaching continually towards higher structural formations. 
The law is from angles to circles. Progress, so far as legit- 
imately referable to Spirit, relates to the manifestational 
rather than the absolute. God as the Infinite Soul or the 
Life-Principle is not progressive. Progress, as applicable 
to the consciousness and ratiocination of mortals, implies, not 
only a low condition of imperfection to progress from, bat 
investigation, experiment, defeats and victories. 

Matter, or physical substance, does not become essential 
spirit — does not, as certain French philosophers have taught, 
" go up into consciousness." If an aggregation of unthink- 
ing monads may become thought — if one particle of matter 
may become spirit — two, ten thousand, all worlds, all matter, 
may become pure spirit! a method comparable to feet " going 
up " into limbs — limbs into body — body into brain — and 
brain into divine mind ! This reasoning, carried logically 
into the actual, would finally ultimate in the transfer of 
"Mother Nature" into "Father God;" or the consum- 
mation contemplated by the Brahminical doctrine of the 
absorption of individualities, and all else, into the " Oceanic 
vortex of absolute Spirit." The position is untenable, and 
destructive to conscious individuality. Spirit must eternally 
depend upon matter for manifestation and the molding of 
sensuous forms. Spirit and matter, as substances, are not 
utterly discreted, as Swedenborg taught; but blended and 
correlated as the spiritual and physical body — duality in 
unity. Reduced to the last metaphysical analysis, we have 
this problem for solution : 

Given physical substance, spirit substance, and the Divine 
Energy, to account for the origin and destiny of cells, worlds, 
systems and conscious spirits. 
17 



258 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

The existence of God is not only the logic of intuition; 
but one of the primary recognitions of human consciousness, 
which consciousness, therefore, is absolutely inseparable from 
the Infinite Consciousness. 

Napoleon, while upon the ocean, pointed starwarcl, and 
said — " Talk, talk much as you please, gentlemen; but who 
— what made and governs those unnumbered worlds that 
pasture in the illimitable fields of heaven?" 

Only apprehending and comprehending that which is 
inferior to ourselves, we cannot comprehend God, nor can 
we j ully fathom the measureless possibilities connected with 
the Divine within ourselves; much less can we reach the 
perfections of the Infinite through any lengthened series of 
finite progressions. Until parallel lines meet and circles are 
squared, never can any continuous number of multiplied 
finites amount to the sum of an infinite. All human pro- 
gress is upon the finite plane. All true unfolclment is from 
the center outward. The ratio of the moral being mathe- 
matical, it is clear that man may progress endlessly without 
reaching God. Progress is not attributable of God, and no 
methodical thinker connects progression with the infinite 
energizing Life-Principle of the universe. 

In conic sections there is what is termed the mathematical 
paradox, where the asymptote continually approaches the Curve, 
but never meets it ; otherwise expressed, we have the formula 
of two mathematical lines, eternally approaching and never 
meeting ; so finite man may forever progress ; eternally nearing 
the infinite fountain cf causation without reaching God. If 
matter, as certain theorists have taught, becomes essential spirit, 
then progress is ultimately defeated, for man necessarily loses 
his individuality and consciousness by assimilation with and 
absorption into, the infinite ocean of Pure Spirit! 

Demosthenes is represented to have said through a modern 
medium : 

" Had you asked me concerning God, a thousand years ago, I could 
have told you all about hiui • but now, after I have walked the highway 
of celestial worlds for more than two thousand years, I am so far lost and 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISE! EXISTENCE OP GOD. 259 

overpowered amid the splendors of Infinitude, I can say nothing. Height 
on height beyond the penetration of finite vision, I see the dim outlines 
of a deific universe ; I feel the flood-tides of Divinity flowing down 
through all the avenues of my immortal being. I hear peal after peal 
of archangel elequence ringing through the endless archways of the 
empyrean, evermore sounding into my ears the name of God, God, God ! 
I am silent, dumb ! " 

Philo, asserted in the most positive manner the masculinity 
and femininity of God and the sexual order of creation. He 
repeatedly represented Wisdom as " spouse of God and 
mother of all things;" and he further says, "We may 
rightly call God the Father and Wisdom the Mother of the 
universe." Also according to Michelange Lanci, the Egyp- 
tian Hieroglyphs, interpreted in the light of Egyptian theos- 
ophy, taught that hoth the male and female principles inhered 
in Deity, spirit and matter, as father and mother. Indian 
Gymnosophists also admitted, in the most ancient periods, 
the duality of the Divine Existence. Abraham, a dissatisfied, 
ambitious Brahmin, inaugurated the worship of a unitive 
masculine god. Moses built upon the same rock ; hence his 
masculine, blood-thirsty, retaliatory laws, founded upon 
" Thus saith the Lord." And the popular Pauline Chris- 
tianity of the past eighteen centuries, is Judaism, only 
sparingly galvanized. 

The paternity and maternity of the Divine Nature, the 
fraternity of human souls, originating from the same primal 
fountain, and the progressive evolutions of all the races, are 
truths that will bloom into wider acceptance as the ages 
ripen. • 

The manifestation al order of the past demonstrates that 
God — the Divine Energy — was. The fixedness of law and 
the uniformity of Nature's processes, prove that God now is. 
Yea, " of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, 
to whom be the glory forever." Looking from the mount 
of vision, we behold Deity enthroned everywhere in majesty 
and splendor — a holy presence, which is the innermost light 
and life of all lives. Springing from the paternal and 



260 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

maternal Source, and divinely allied therewith, upon the 
loving bosom of God we recline and rest, with a trust so 
beautiful and a confidence so deep, that nothing can disturb 
the calm. 



Lhaptef^ XXVI, 



THE DIVINE IMAGE. 



; In me God dwelleth ; 
I in Him and He in me ! 
And my yearning soul he filleth, 
Here, and through eternity." 

Divine and unitive in purpose are manhood and woman- 
hood ! In the " divine image made he them." The ex- 
pression is oriental. Hillel and other scholarly Hebraists 
may have seen the substance under the symbol. 

Man, the crown-flower of Nature's formative forces, 
stands erect a polished shaft upon the summit of earth's 
granitic-paved pyramid. In him are focalized the refined 
and sublimated ultimates pertaining to the whole. Stars 
may waltz and whirl through space ; but they cannot think. 
Planets, to the music of immutable law, may polka across 
tesselated floors in the temple of the eternal; but they can 
neither reason nor love. Man and woman alone, essential 
equals of a perfect circle, walk forth in the divine image ; 
but this image does not consist in physical formation, for 
God is not, as we have previously shown, a shaped per- 
sonality outside the visible universe, rolling and guiding 
astral worlds mechanically as school-boys roll their hoops; 
but is Infinite Spirit, containing the elements of all forms, 
the principles of all forces, and the attributes of all intelli- 
gence, acting by unchanging methods for the highest good. 

261 



262 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

The divine image In which man is made consists in those 
original constituents and principles that constitute him an 
eternal individuality. At the inner basis he is essential spirit, 
clothed secondarily with a spiritual or soul body, and rimmed 
with a grosser physical organism. Trinal in constitution, 
with crowning brain-organs inviting angel guests, man is a 
perfect structure. The spiritual nature — "Keystone" to the 
moral arch — seals with eternity's seal both his divinity and 
immortality. 

The basis of man's immortality is deific substance. As a 
conscious spirit in the innermost, he is iucompounded and 
therefore indissoluble. Having in spirit neither a beginning 
nor ending, he is eternally past and eternally future — ever 
living in eternal life. Neither burial in the placenta walls of 
maternity, nor burial in the human organism, nor burial from 
sight, can effect the essential real. 

The animal having only a portion of the primary elements 
of life, having a less number of brain-faculties, and uncon- 
scious of its relations to the original fountain of being, is 
comparably an imperfect structure. Logic cannot legiti- 
mately affirm of a part what it does of a whole ; neither will 
philosophical minds, conversant with the results of analysis 
and critical exegesis, claim — for entities and individualities — 
destinies to which they never aspired. These statements 
admitted, animals, as such, are not immortal. There is, 
however, no annihilation ; no absolute loss in the universe. 
When the grazing animal dies, earth crumbles to its native 
earth, and the spiritual substances, disintegrated, pass into the 
great vortex of spirit, to be elementarily re-incarnated for 
use in higher forms. 

That human beings dwell in distant countries or islands, 
with no conceptions of God, or of worship germinal or 
expressed,, is not merely doubted, but denied. If such people 
exist, not only their location, but their deplorable position, 
is susceptible of proof. When those Spanish conquerors 
reached Mexico and Peru, the historian, Prescott, says they 
found there an u abiding faith in God and immortality." 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — THE DIVINE IMAGE. 263 

Roman Catholic Jesuits, fired with a missionary enthusiasm, 
visiting China, Thibet, and the distant islands of the ocean, 
found everywhere the religious idea firmly rooted. The 
North American Indians, when first discovered by European 
explorers, had their religious ideas of God, worship and 
heavenly hunting-grounds. Dr. Livingstone, the English 
traveler, penetrating into the interior of Africa, brought home 
this report: "There is no necessity for beginning to tell 
even the most degraded of these people of the existence 
of God, or of a future state, these facts being universally 
admitted. * * * * 

On questioning intelligent men among the Bakwains as 
to their former knowledge of good and evil, of God, and of a 
future state, they have scouted the idea of their ever having 
been without a tolerably clear conception on all these sub. 
jects. They fully believe in the soul's continued existence 
apart from the body, and visit the graves of relatives with 
offerings." 

Unfolding humanity in every country and condition — 
worshipful, aspirational and conscious of vast capabilities for 
progress — has within itself the prophecy of a future as endless 
as golden. 

Admitting true the old legend of man's creation, or rather 
hurried improvisation from the " dust of the ground," and 
woman's from " Adam's rib," when in deep sleep, the 
position would afford no logical basis for the affirmation, that 
man was made in the " divine, image." Philosophy, older 
than traditions, goes beneath symbols. Listen to its divine 
voice ! 

All known substances are composed of some sixty-five 
simples called 'primaries, because first found in the rocks. 
These rocks, from pulverization and the attritions of ages, 
result in soils. From these soils — spirit the motive force — 
vegetables are evolved, which still lift and more thoroughly 
refine the primates, aiding them to become sufficiently 
attenuated and potentialized to sustain animal organizations. 
Man's physical constitution is the grand reservoir of all the 



264 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

ultiraates of rocks, soils, vegetables, forests, fruits and ani- 
mals. He does not appropriate the primates as such. 
There's no affinity. These basic elements, taken up by the 
lower order of plants, and progressing upward through all 
the ascending grades, ultimate in man. As a physical 
being, then, he is related to all orders of existence below him, 
and, asa spiritual being, composed of original spirit substances 
and principles, he is connected not only with all the higher 
intelligences of the heavens, but with the Infinite himself, as 
a ray from a central sun, or stream proceeding from and sus- 
tained by an Infinite Fountain. A chemist, analyzing a drop 
of water from a thermal sulphur or sodium spring, will show 
by critical, chemical analysis that each drop not only partakes 
of, but contains, the identical elements and properties of the 
whole fountain. Well, man is the drop, and God the Eter- 
nal Fountain ! And the divine chemistry of logical analysis — 
intuition, reason and science — demonstrates that every 
essence attribute and principle of God exists finitely in man,, 
and thus is he truly made in the divine image — a perfect 
structure — a god " manifest in the flesh," imaging the 
eternal principles and properties of Father and Mother. 



Chapter xxvii. 



MORAL STATUS OF JESUS. 

***** Ecce Homo ! 
" But whom say ye that I am ?" 

The divine out-pushing impulse to ask, implies intelligence 
somewhere to answer every natural inquiry. Denying the 
existence of the Asian ISTazarene, is simply assertive nega- 
tion and valueless to the thinker, besides exhibiting little 
scholarly attainment, and less historic research. If poesy 
needed a Homer — Sculptor a Phidias — jurisprudence a 
Lycurgus — morals a Confucius — philosophy a Plato' — and 
oratory a Demosthenes — the Israelitish nations, given to 
religious contemplation, required just such an intuitive, 
loving, self-sacrificing character, as Jesus of Nazareth — the 
central personage of the gospels. His advent, heralded by 
angels, his mission was one of mercy, and " Peace on earth, 
good will to men." 

It is difficult to disconnect countries from nations and 
nations from their inspired leaders, who tower up, as lofty 
columns, the glory of future eras. Goethe says : 

" It is with nations as with families. When a family has 
lived a long time, it finally produces an individual who gath- 
ers up into himself the attributes of all his ancestors ; rallies 
their scattered or half-developed qualities, and presents them 
incarnate in their full perfection. So the felicity of Provi- 
dence will occasionally sum up in an individual the virtue of 
a nation." 

265 



266 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

The ascended John Pierpoint, reflecting upon oriental 
lands and their illumined seers, gives expression to his 
admiration for Syrian scenery in these rhythmic lines — " The 
airs of Palestine." 

" Let a lonelier, lovelier path be mine, 



Greece and ber charms I'd leave for Palestine. 

These purer streams thro' happier valleys flow, 

And sweeter flowers on holier mountains blow. 

I should love to breathe where Gilead sheds her balm, 

I should love to walk on Jordan's banks of palm, 

I should love to rest my feet in Hermon's dews ; 

I should love the promptings of Isaiah's muse ; 

In Carmel's holy grots I'd court repose, 

And deck my mossy couch with Sharon's blooming rose." 

Abraham went west and founded Israel ; Cadmus went 
west and founded the second Thebes ; ./Eneas went west and 
founded Rome; leaving Jerusalem, Jesus went west to seek 
and save " his people from their sins." It was not Israel, 
Judea, Carmel, nor Sharon, but representative men — the 
men of ideas gracing those ancient countries, who live in his- 
tory so fadeless, and continue precious along the memories 
of many generations. Human nature in its best estate, rising 
above family, social relations, country, nation, is ever regard- 
ful of tne great, and loyal to the good, whenever and where- 
ever found. 

Admitting the general tendency of the Asiatic mind to the 
dreamy exercise of a vivid imagination, coupled at times 
with exaggeration, still it is very clear to those read in the 
philosophy of history, that the more ancient parables and 
myths were not the empty fictions of an idle fancy; but 
rather the utterances of an immortal and ubiquitous intui- 
tion, whose substratum is truth. 

To assume the absolute creation of such a personage from 
nonentity as Jesus of Nazareth, entitles the one thus affirm- 
ing to the charity of imbecility. He was the child of the 
heavens, of prophecy, and of harmony. The wisdom of the 
angels threw him into an age of conservatism and stupid 
bigotry. The Mosaic law had degenerated into cold 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — MORAL STATUS OF JESUS. 267 

formalisms ; brotherly kindness into caste and currency, and 
principle into policy. Judaism, large mingling with the cur- 
rents of history, had become divided into two branches — 
Palestine and that called the " dispersion." Such secta- 
rists were they in their own Asian country, bordering Africa 
and Europe, that, pressing around one temple and one altar, 
the Rabbins cursed all Israelites who proved so recreant to 
the law of Moses, as to teach their children Greek. 

The Sadducees were a sort of Epicureans ; materialistic in 
tendency, denying the immortality of the soul and the 
existence of angels. The Pharisees were Separatists, cling- 
ing to the letter of the law, and the traditional injunctions of 
Jehovah. The Essenians were the Shakers of that period. 
Jesus was in full' sympathy with them. 

War, commerce, the Assyrian captivity and nomadic 
tendencies, had scattered many of the Israelites throughout 
the world. These spoke the Greek tongue. This language, 
derived largely from the Sanscrit, had become, what Latin 
was at a much later period, the court language and medium 
of communication among all the more enlightened nations. 
In those prominent eastern cities, especially Alexandria and 
Antioch, flourishing capitals of Egypt and Syria, these scat- 
tered Jews formed numerous societies, placing at the head 
some rich, influential families. Their Palestinean brothers 
called them Hellenists They were not considered soundly 
Orthodox, even though they had succeeded in getting the 
Jewish Bible translated into Greek, under the Ptolemies. 

At this initial point in the religious cycle of that era, we 
get a correct clue to those moral forces constituting the 
peculiarities of John — the disciple that "Jesus loved." 
Zebedee, his father, a wealthy Israelite, was a profound 
thinker of the school of Hillel, and exceedingly liberal in 
doctrinal tendencies. John, a natural genius, rich in the 
gift of a warm, sensitive love-nature, endowed with a fine 
delicate organization, highly mediumstic, a thorough- 
trained scholar for that age of the world, and wonderfully 
gifted with a capacity for acquiring a knowledge of the 



268 DOCTRINES OP SPIRITUALISTS. 

languages, was just adapted for the constant companionship 
of Jesus. Literally, John was a Hellenistic Jew, thoroughly 
initiated into the civilization, literature, and philosophy of 
the Greeks. This accounts for the continually cropping out 
of Pythagoric doctrines in his gospel. John, our patron 
saint, is, in many respects, the ideal man of the New Testa- 
ment. Holy and heavenly was the perpetual friendship exist- 
ing between Jesus, John, and his brother James. Superior 
scholarship, coupled with a sweet-tender heart-fellowship^ 
entitled John to the privilege of ever accompanying Jesus 
as lingual interpreter and counselor, which enabled him 
more fully to comprehend the scope and moral grandeur of 
Jesus mediatorial work ; for, medium-like, '* he came not 
to do his own will, but the will of him that sent him." 

Dying a martyred death, Jesus committed to the care of 
John, his sainted Mother. Love and tenderness grow from 
the same stem. Budding on earth they unfold and bloom 
forever in the heavens. Enwrapt and emblazoned in the 
glory of fraternal affection, Jesus and the disciple he 
" loved," now together, traverse the celestial heavens, doing 
the will of the Eternal, by teaching in supernal spheres, and 
inspiring God's dear humanity. 

Though the Church-Fathers may have manipulated the 
primative manuscripts — gospels and epistles— one giving to 
the JSTazarene a certain attitude; another some peculiar 
expression of form or forehead ; and others still, crowning 
him with plumes originally worn by Chrishna, Confucius, 
Plato, and Hillel — our belief in Jesus remains unshaken. We 
believe in him, not as the Infinite God, not as a supernatural 
being, not as a miracle-begotten specialty to patch up an 
inefficient " plan of salvation" and ward off divine wrath ; 
but as a man — a mortal brother of the immortal gods and god- 
desses, who temperamentally helped fashion him, that, inspired 
by them and a " legion of angels," he might aid in uplifting 
and molding the future ages. He called himself the " Son 
of man." The Apostle termed him " our elder brother," 
He ate, drank, slept, hungered, thirsted, and, weary from 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — MORAL STATUS OF JESUS. 269 

journeyings, rested by Samaria's well. He was tempted; 
endured pain; impetuously cursed a fig-tree; "learned 
obedience by the things he suffered ;" was " made perfect " 
by draining bitter life-cups of experience, and finally, with 
soul aglow to the logic of love and intuition, and prayer- 
words of forgiveness dropping from fevered lips like gems 
from a crown, he died a martyr! 

The German Zschokke says : " If Jesus were to come 
to-day among Christians, they would nail him to the cross, 
as did the Jews." 

Appearing, as of old, in some of our commercial cities, he 
would not " go on 'Change at 12 o'clock ; " would not 
visit an 8 o'clock prayer-meeting to make an oration to the 
Lord; would not swing a censer in a Catholic Cathedral, 
muttering Latin ; would not swell in the Episcopal robes of 
Ritualism; would not conjure up a creedal interpretation, to 
a Universalist confession of faith ; but, with a toleration wide 
as human wants, he would say as of old — " By this shall 
all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one 
for another." Then, going about blessing children, seeking 
vagrants, eating with sinners to reform them, healing the 
sick and teaching by the wayside, till weary, he would retire 
for rest to some Shaker community, Essenian-like, where 
love was pure, free and fraternal. Sincerely do we believe 
in this Jesus of the gospels — the man that was — the Christ- 
spirit, that is. 

No star continually courses the same orbit. No man 
bathes in the same stream twice. The Bryant of Thanatopsis 
is not the Bryant of to-day. Longfellow's " Psalm of 
Life" reveals less strength and culture than his "New 
England Tragedies." Individualities do not vary; but their 
expressions do. The Jesus who scourged the " money- 
changers," compared errorists to " swine" — to " thieves and 
robbers" — and threatened his conservative fellow-country- 
men with the " damnation of hell," is not the gentle Jesus 
who breathed the beatitudes ; who said to the woman, 
neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more," and prayed 



270 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

upon Calvary, " Father, forgive them." When uttering 
these tender sentiments, feeling a quickening of the divine 
nature, — and literally " horn again," — born into the celes- 
tial degree of the Christ-life — coming into close magnetic 
fellowship and oneness with his " My Father" or Spirit 
guide, truthfully he said, " I and my Father are one" — that 
is, I and my controlling spirit intelligence are one in desire, 
purpose and the great work of human elevation. Referring 
to the Infinite Presence, he exclaimed: " God (Theos, not 
Pater) is a Spirit, and they that worship him, must worship 
him in spirit and in truth." 

Harmonial, prayerful, divinely overshadowed, he grasped 
and appropriated the good, the pure, and the true, found 
in the older systems, and lived them in his daily life. 
Though walking with man, he talked with angels. He had 
bread to eat, that the Jewish external world " knew not 
of." He went forth, especially towards the close of his mis- 
sion, a practical impersonation of the principles he taught — 
Universal love — universal purity — universal charity. 
These being the three pillars in his soul-temple, his kingdom 
was not of this world. His heavens and hells were con- 
ditions higher or lower ; his salvation self-growth. Caring 
little for outward purity, nothing for the cowardly " what 
will the people say," and desiring only to establish the 
inner reign of truth, love and self-denial, he left no writings, 
no creed, no code, no role of life, no church organizations, 
no plan for State constitutions, no clerical investitures, no 
baptismal ceremonies, nor fossil forms of worship. His 
trust in God was absolutely sublime. His hopefulness of 
man was unbounded. His love for women was angelic ;' 
and purity, the only guarantee for seeing God. 

Jesus, then, stands in relation to the past the best embodi- 
ment of Spiritualism, the richest Judean outgrowth of the 
spiritual idea, and looking lovingly down from the Summer 
Land, sweetly says, " Come up hither." By the exercise 
of sympathy and aspiration, by effort and consecration to the 
truth, by daily holy living, he came into the highest heavenly 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — MORAL STATUS OF JESUS. 271 

relations. Quickened, intensified from the celestial heavens, 
his original pre-existent home, (for before the mortal Abra- 
ham was, he had a " glory with the Father,") his inmost 
yielded an elemental flow of pure spiritual life. The finest 
textured type, the most harmonial brain organism perhaps 
of this planet, in that era, he virtually lived in two worlds — ■ 
the Christ of tenderness and love, experiencing sweetest 
union with God. A thorough intuitionist by nature, he was 
a practical Spiritualist in word and deed. He worshiped in 
spirit and in truth. His kingdom was a spiritual kingdom, 
with the center in humanity's great throbbing heart, and 
Love the king. His church was a spiritual church, built up 
in the souls of men and extensive as the races. His second 
coming was spiritual — coming, as & spirit, in spirit and 
power. That " second coming" in the " clouds of heaven," 
with holy angels and ministering spirits freighted with 
exalted truths and the enunciation of eternal principles, is in 
process now. Multitudes of the more mediumistic feel this 
divine down-flowing influx as the breath of an eternal spring. 

Beautiful is this faith, this belief, in Jesus, the ascended 
Son of Nazereth. All those who thus believe — that is, come 
into harmonial relations with the Christ-principle, living the 
same time spiritual life that he lived — may do similar, and, 
perhaps, " greater works than these." True, he did not give 
all the " tests," all the signs, nor do all the works that 
Jewish skeptics, plodding in cold externalisms, expected. 
He did not transform " stones to bread," by command ; did 
not " save himself by coming down from the cross." He 
could not thus save himself; for he could transcend no 
established law of Nature. At certain times, owing to 
" conditions," unbelief, lack of harmony or passivity, he 
could do comparatively nothing. Hence in Matthew 
(xiii : 58) we read, " Jesus did not many mighty works 
there, because of their unbelief." And the Evangelist Mark 
says distinctly, " And he could there do no mighty work, * * 

* and he marveled because of their unbelief." Before 
departing, however, for that mauy-mansioned house in the 



272 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS.. 

upper kingdoms of the Infinite, he assured his disciples 
in all ages — " These signs shall follow them that believe : 
In my name shall they cast out devils ; they shall lay hands on 
the sick and they shall recover ; and if they eat any deadly 
thing it shall not hurt them : Go ye therefore into all the 
world and preach the gospel to every creature " 

While sincerely believing in Jesus, infinitely deeper is oui 
trust in God, the incarnate life and light of eternity. In 
holiest fellowship with Jesus, angels and loved spirits in the 
bosom of the Infinite, then, is our rest forever.) 



Chapter xxyiil 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



, "Lie open, Soul ! lo, angels wait 
To enter thine abode 1 
Messiahs linger at thy gate ; 
Let in the truth of God.'' 

The Spirit, the Paraklete, the Comforter-, is frequently 
referred to in the gospels. In John's record we read : " But 
the Conforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father 
will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and 
bring to your remembrance whatever I have said unto you." 

Ghost is a most barbarous translation of the Greek, 
pneuma — the Latin, spiritus. Pneuma, naturally of the neuter 
gender, should have been translated — spirit. " He shall 
baptize you with the holy spirit (en pneumati agio) and with 
fire;" that is, shall surround and infill you with a most 
exalting and spiritualizing influence, the purifying effects of 
which are comparable to fire. As scripturally used, the 
phrase sometimes signifies influence or agency, and at other 
times individualized, immortalized spirits. 

" The disciples * * * were terrified and affrighted, and supposed they 
had seen a spirit." 

" Well spake the Holy Spirit by Esaias the prophet unto our 
fathers." 

" Whatsoever shall be given unto you in that hour that speak ye ; for 
it is not ye that speak ; but the Holy Spirit." 

18 273 



274 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

" Then said Jesus to them again, peace be unto you. * * * And 
when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the 
Holy Spirit." 

" After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia ; 
but the spirit permitted them not." 

" While Peter thought on the vision, the spirit said unto him, Behold, 
three men seek thee." 

" Then the spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this 
chariot." 

" And when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on 
them and they spake with tongues and prophesied." 

" Then Peter and John * * * laid their hands on them, and they 
received the Holy Spirit." 

These apostles, as well as Paul, being powerful developing 
mediums,, so intensified the spiritual atmosphere, that, by 
laying their hands upon those susceptible persons, thus 
increasing the magnetic battery, they were surcharged and 
thrilled with the electric influx. So at the Pentecostal scene 
described in 1 Acts, " when they were all with one accord in 
one place, suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a 
rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they 
were sitting. And there appeared cloven tongues like as of 
g re> * * * And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,, 
and began to speak with other tongues, as the spirit gave 
them utterance." 

The spiritual manifestations upon present pentecostal occa- 
sions, when our media are in harmony, corroborate those of 
the past; and the past, to historic inclined minds, confirm 
the present. Thus the old and the new, as witnesses in a 
common cause, clasp hands. 

One of the demonstrations of spiritual clairvoyance, estab- 
lishes the fact that each individual is enveloped in a spiritual 
sphere or emanation. This is often seen by the exceedingly 
sensitive, and sometimes absolutely felt even by those of 
dull and deadened sensibilities. The discovery of the spec- 
trum analysis, which now occupies so important a position 
in the investigation of the physical sciences, is already help- 
ing Spiritualism, by demonstrating similar auroral spheres 



EXEGBTICAL SPIRITUALISM THE HOLY SPIRIT. 275 

and emanations around physical substances. Spiritualists 
have taught this for } ? ears. It was a clairvoyant discovery. 
Science follows Spiritualism — a great way off. 

Mr. Ruskin, writing a friend in the north of England, 
says : 

" You most probably have heard of the marvelous power which chem- 
ical analysis has received in recent discoveries respecting the laws of 
light. My friend showed me the rainbow of the rose, and the rainbow 
of the violet, and the rainbow of the hyacinth, and the rainbow of the 
forest leaves being born, and the rainbow of forest leaves dying. And, 
last, he showed me the rainbow of blood. It was but the three-hundreth 
part of a grain, dissolved in a drop of water ; and it cast its measured 
bars, for ever recognisable now to human sight, on the chord of the seven 
colors. And no drop of that red rain can now be shed, so small as that 
the stain of it cannot be known, and the voice of it heard out of the 
ground." 

If there is a spheral emanation around the crystal, the plant, 
the rose, and a drop of blood, how natural that there should be 
electro-odylic spheres around physical and more etherealized 
spiritual bodies. The earthly is but the analogue of the 
spiritual. 

Sensitive persons, with organisms like iodized plates, sym- 
pathetically sense these spheres. Clairvoyants see, and read 
therefrom the true character. 

This age has few secrets. Seers see the innermost of things, 
and conscious souls know kindred souls. When rapt in this 
holy soul-blending sympathy, law is useless, labor a pleasure, 
and duty a word obsolete. Such souls converse across oceans 
when no sounds pass. Oblivious to the outward, to time 
and space, they live the inner life. Those positive impart to 
the negative — impart what they have, the quality of the efflux 
corresponding to the. interior state. If good and pure-minded, 
they impart the "Holy Spirit ;" that is, a most uplifting and 
spiritualizing influence. This rationally explains why Jesus 
" took little children in his arms and blessed them." The 
blessing did not consist in the uttered -words, but in the 
celestializing influence of the divine magnetism he imparted. 



276 DOCTRINES OP SPIRITUALISTS. . 

It explains also why lie " breathed upon his disciples," and 
how it was that he " felt virtue go out of him" when the 
negative woman touched the hem of his garment. 

To feel the breath of the pure — to come into soul-fellowship 
with the true and noble, is equivalent to a baptism of the 
" Holy Spirit; " a crown of joy and a moral transfiguration. 



Lhaptef^ XXIX. 



BAPTISM. 



" Teach me Thy Truth to know, 
That this new light which now I see 
May both the work and workman show ; 
Then by baptismal love, I'll climb to Thee." 

In tropical countries of the East, ablutions were common. 
Since water was efficacious in removing effete substances 
from the body, it became, in time, an accepted emblem of 
moral purification. Immersion was doubtless the outward 
method. The Christian church has contended that Jesus 
dictated a fixed formula of baptism, when he charged the 
apostles to " Teach all nations, baptising them in the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; " but 
the apostles themselves thought differently, and baptized 
simply in the name of Jesus. Spiritually interpreted and 
applied, the Father may signify the absolute religion ; the 
Son, the religion of humanity; and the Holy Spirit the 
religion of the conscience and affectional nature, kindled 
into holy aspiration by the magnetisms of angels. 

The Greek word baptisma, rendered baptism from the verb 
baptizo, implies rite or ceremony. Relative to this matter of 
baptism we accept the following Pauline teaching : 

" One Lord, one faith, one baptism. 

" One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and 
in you all." — Eph. iv : 5-6. 

277 



278 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

This one genuine baptism, however, is not, never was, water 
baptism. All outward baptisms are Mosaic. After every act 
of defilement, the Israelites were commanded to bathe and 
wash themselves clean with water. 

John the Baptist, seemingly disorderly and fanatical, a 
partially developed medium, controlled by Elias to cry in 
Judean forests, never embraced Christianity as taught by the 
Nazarene; neither did he spiritually enter in fulness the 
Messiah's " Kingdom of Heaven." Hence, said Jesus, " He 
that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." 
John came under the law dispensation. Immersion in some 
flowing stream was his manner of initiating converts. Many 
of his more aspirational disciples soon left him, however, and 
followed the man of Nazareth. John, by the aid of his 
mediumship, caught a glimpse of this superior teacher 
and testifier : " I indeed baptized you with water 'unto 
repentance > but he that cometh after me, whose shoes I am 
not worthy to bear, shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost 
and with fire." " But Jesus himself baptized not " with 
water. 

His disciples in a few instances baptized by immersion ; so, 
not having attained unto the higher and more spiritual, they 
also, in the earlier years of their mediumship, occasionally 
circumcised and practiced other Jewish ceremonies. None 
of them, save John the Evangelist, understood Jesus, or the 
import of his spiritual kingdom. They received the Naza- 
renean baptism of fire, of love, of consecration and holy 
spirit influx, only in part, and hence their doubts, fears and 
tergiversations. Honoring John the Baptist for his zeal, 
admiring his immersion rites because of their cleanly and 
invigorating effects in that dusty tropical country, and 
believing also in the necessity of present physical ablutions, 
we recommend daily baptisms in summer-time, and their 
frequency in winter. 

There is, however, an efficacy of water baptism, under 
spiritual control, not yet understood or appreciated by the 
church — a baptism which the spirits were able to induce 



EXKGBTICAL SPIRITUALISM — BAPTISM. 279 

through John, in one of his exalted mediuraistic states, 
whilst baptising Jesus in Jordan. It is well known that 
water can be magnetically spiritualized by repeatedly touch- 
ing and agitating it; and that water being a conductor of 
electric action, can thus be made a powerful agency in curing 
diseases and spiritualizing body and mind. It is said that an 
angel, at certain times, stirred the pool of Bethesda, and 
whosoever then stepped into it, was healed of ai y disease. 
No doubt the angel magnetized it — charged it with spiritual 
vitality. A baptism therein was efficacious to the well and 
the sick. The water that closed over Jesus in baptism, was 
spiritualized by spirits through the mediumship of John, and 
therefore was more than a sign of purity. Spirits have been 
known of late to sprinkle a whole circle of inquirers with 
spiritualized water, the influence of which was most benefi- 
cent to harmonize the mediumistic conditions. We do not 
dissent from such uses of water, but recommend them. We, 
however, would have no special formality. Let all elements 
be spiritualized, even the food we eat, as an every-day 
eucharist. When we are intromitted into the real spiritual 
life, and all our being is thus harmonized to the music- ripples 
of " the water of life " — the divine inflowings — not only are 
we in person, but all things around us, are truly baptized and 
consecrated to holiness. There is, then, but one true Christ- 
baptism — the baptism of the " Holy Spirit," — the descending, 
divine afflatus, lifting the soul into that sweeter, calmer 
fellowship of the more heavenly intelligences. In this 
divine baptism, whether from good men or women, or 
angels, we believe, and unto it continually seek. 



Chapter 



xxx. 



INSPIRATION. 



" There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth it 
anderstanding." 

*****<< Inspiration clothes creation in a robe of day." 

Inspiration — God's outflowing breath — is man's inbreathed 
life — a constant power. The universe is a many-toned harp 
with strings swept by the forces of the Infinite. Aspirations 
are the vibrations. All souls feel them. Uplifted, they 
measure the divine light poured into receptive spirits. 

Spiritual illuminations, — exalted £ and original thoughts — 
evidently emanate from an over-arching world of subtile 
principles and invisible powers. The heavens vivify the 
earth. 

"Every soul is aflame with God." 

From the Latin, inspiro, comes the word inspiration; imply- 
ing inbreathings, impregnating and opening the avenues 
of perception, the infusion of feeling, influence, ideas from 
the All-perfect and the angelic — from the immortalized, and 
from mortals — from forests, fields, flowers, and the beautiful 
in nature everywhere. As God is infinite, filling im- 
mensity, inspiration is necessarily universal and perpetual as 
the river of life. Not creating within us new faculties, it 
arouses and kindles into keener activities all the hidden 
forces of our conscious beings. Pertaining more to souls 

280 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — INSPIRATION. 281 

than books or traditionary legends, itoversweeps the epochs 
of all the dust-buried ages, and is even more perfect now 
than in those earlier mornings of time. 

As water, crystal or clouded, assumes the shape of its 
vases, so inspiration is graded in quantity and quality. Who 
has not, in the higher moments of thought or aspiration, felt 
a sweet, hallowed inbreathing from the great pulsing soul of 
nature ? Who has stood upon some emerald-carpeted moun- 
tains in the hush of evening, and not felt the soul expand as 
it caught glimpses of immortal truths ? Who, walking 
among the lilies of the field, has not been startled and 
thrilled with the consciousness of those eternal principles 
that stream in liquid pearls through universal being ? 

Rising liking shafts of flame from the abysmal past, we 
see in Hesiod a poet, Jeremiah a weeper, Pythagoras a 
thinker, Socrates a philosopher-, Pericles a constructor, 
Appeles an artist, Jesus a Spiritualist, John a mystic, 
Perasee a scientist, Mozart a musician, Bacon a logician, 
Ballou a theologian. These, with others, yielding to what 
Emerson facetiously terms " the broodings of the oversoul," 
enriching their receptive minds by the study of the spiritual 
laws that map the universe, and mentally appropriating the 
living sermons preached daily in the great Temple of Nature, 
with birds for singers and oceans for organs — these, we 
repeat, speaking words that burned, or breathing music that 
charmed — touched the world's heart and left their psycho- 
logical imprint thereon — touched it, because divinely inspired. 

Not the sacred books of India or China — not the many- 
versioned Bibles in use by Jews or Christians, are inspired; 
but rather the truths they mirror. 

All truth, in Bibles or out of them — ail truth, scientific 
philosophic or religious — is inspired. Truth is a unity. It is 
only in the seeming that truths clash. Octave notes do not 
jar. The unripe peaches of July do not contradict the 
blushing and mellowed ones of October. They only manifest 
the different stages consequent upon the law of growth. 
Our media, like the seers of Egypt, Greece and Rome, — like 



282 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

the prophets of Hebrew history, — like the apostles and 
martyrs of the better dispensations, are — in their hours of 
abstraction or loftiest contemplation, beautifully inspired. 
As one among these, " doomed to-day," we take a manly 
pride in acknowledging our helps from the world of 
spirits. 

There is a general and a special inspiration — both natural. 
Our spirit guides inspire "us, either by willing a magnetic 
current to touch, as with regenerating fire, our brain facul- 
ties ; or — the conditions previously prepared — by approach- 
ing and breathing the inmost feelings of their own heaven- 
illumined souls into ours. God, being infinite and impartial, 
all humanities, constituting a fraternal unity in diversity of 
individualities, are inspired from higher or lower planes of 
conscious existence. The truer the aim, the diviner the 
purpose, sweeter the nature and holier the Aspiration, the 
more exalting and ecstatic is the inspiration. Plato, mantled 
in Grecian grandeur, gathered his highest inspirations 
while summering upon the cloud-piercing Hymettus; 
Mahomet, from Arabian summits ; Confucius, from Asian 
mountains, and Jesus, tearful and prayerful, from Kedron's 
valley, and Olive's mountain. 

Inspiration comes obedient to the law of attraction ; it is 
as natural to the mental affections as air to the lungs. It is 
ever ratioed to the plane of our moral status of character. 
Only the active, thinking, loving, aspiring mind is truly 
inspired. "We get here what we seek. There are spiritual 
strata of inspiration as there are natural strata in our ma- 
terial atmospheres for each grade of sentient being. We 
may, therefore, be inspired in the department of passion, of 
reflection, of invention, of music, of poetry, of patriotism, of 
philanthropy, of the loves of childhood, of moral justice, of 
divine recognition, just as we adjust and habituate these 
functional organs and faculties. The lower the plane the 
grosser is the qualitative inspiration ; the higher the plane the 
purer is the inspiration. Our status of love-life determines 
the degree of our heaven or spiritual sphere of use. If we 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — INSPIRATION. 288 

would be ushered into holy light, the holiest purpose must 
animate the will to corresponding activities. Thus, and thus 
only, do we drink of the immortal fountains of nndimmed 
and celestial goodness. Under such an inspiration, we are 
able to discover defects in our forces of character, creating a 
keen, sharp pain in a tender conscience that rouses up to 
focalize those dormant faculties to higher points of mind and 
heart, that thea loom up in visions as an attainable glory. 
The holiest spirits have the deepest pain when any taint is 
found upon their inner life. When admitted to inspirations 
and consociations of such spirits, our unstrung or untouched 
chords of love are attuned to heavenly order, when our 
whole being is at length spiritually musicalized, heard and 
felt in raptured gratitude to the "white-vestured" come to 
lead us into their Edens of Innocence and Beauty. 

Believing in inspiration, then, we would go up day by day 
on to the Mount of Transfiguration ; would open the win- 
dows of our souls to the constant reception of higher 
truths ; "would be charitable to all fresh thoughts, from 
whatever source, to all newly conceived ideas, for they may 
have traveled as blessings down from sunnier zones. 
Behind even the faintest corruscation of some wierd, half- 
expressed truth, there may gleam a star silver-shrouded, or 
a celestial sun awaiting earthly recognition. 

God is in the present. The books of inspiration are not 
closed and sealed. Ideas, principles, the laws of pure intel- 
ligence, require no crutches. Americans can stand erect 
without spinal stiffenings from Asian monuments. Prayer 
need not float to heaven on the breath of ancient memories; 
nor assume oriental attitudes to secure a hearing. 

"Where'er there's a life to be kindled by love, 

Wherever a soul to inspire, 
Strike this key-note of God that trembles above, 
Night's silver-tongued voices of fire." 

Our granite-hills and highlands, are sacred as Israel's 
mountains ; our rivers holy as the Jordans of Asia, and our 



284 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

forests beautiful as the olives and cedars that shaded 
Lebanon. God did not speak his first word to Moses in the 
Old Testament ; nor pronounce his last to John on 
Patmos. The aspirations of true men cannot be held in 
slavish subjection to the letter of past revelations. Souls 
must have living bread. They must bathe in living streams, 
branching from the " River of Life." They must be free as 
God's winds — free as the loves of the angels. 

Inspirations can never know a finality, being manifest in 
all forms of life ; in the progressive movements of the ages ; 
in religion, art and science; in the moral heroism of 
reformers ; in the tender affections of woman ; in the 
ministry of spirits ; in the sincere devotions of the prayerful, 
and in the sweet trust of a pure and holy life. 



Chapter xxxi, 



BEAUTY OF FAITH. 



" The soul's vague longing— 
The aching void which nothing earthly fills — 
Oh, what desires upon my heart are thronging, 
As I look upward to the heavenly hills ! " 

The acceptance of the sciences is based more upon the 
investigations of others than personal research. Christen- 
dom, rejecting t^ie inspirations and spiritual manifestations 
of the present, rests its bony head upon the old grayed 
monuments of antiquity, and strives to fill its leanness upon 
histories and doubtful facts connected with ancient Jewish 
feasts. It piously prefers dipping from the "Dead Sea," than 
drinking from America's gushing fountains. This is an 
abuse of faith. Spiritualists understand the import of these 
teachings — " Give us this day our daily bread " — " a well of 
water within you springing up into everlasting life " — " Lo ! 
I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world ! " 

Faith is perpetual. When its " substance of things hoped 
for " is swallowed up in fruition, like the bud blossoming 
into the flower, it unfolds a yet higher life — ever higher — 
preluding immortal progress. 

Faith often used in a subjective sense for personal belief, 
is elemental in the human soul, and may be defined an 
assent of the mind to propositions based upon the testimony 
of others, or an acceptance of such truths as seem legiti- 
mately deducible from the investigations of physical and 

285 



286 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

moral science. Faith, differing essentially from mere belief, 
is graded upward from the more external to the divine, 
corresponding relationally to the outer and inner conscious- 
ness. The latter is closely allied to intuition. It is a glim- 
mering from the star of destiny. Faith is essential to suc- 
cessful communication with ministering spirits. The adjust- 
ment of the spirit batteries, under this la*w, is most delicate 
and beautiful. The spirit has to employ our magnetic sphere 
— enters into rapport with us sympathetically — and if we are 
any ways deceptive and tricky, gloomy and unbelieving, our 
very mental and moral condition defeats the object; for then 
a pure and truthful spirit, who would communicate, finds it 
very difficult to reach our sphere, it being so magnetically 
repellant. Honest doubt does not imply un-faith ; in fact, it 
is faith in embryo* The candid inquirer always gets light; 
for such a sphere attracts the angel who CDmes to bless " the 
poor in spirit." Faith, then, is rooted in innocency. "Thy 
faith hath made thee whole." How beautiful it is under the 
effulgence of this spiritual light! When 'our purpose is 
sincere, Faith-angels come, administering "good tidings of 
good " to those who " seek immortality — eternal life ! " 

Louis Napoleon landed upon the French coast with a few 
adherents, shouting — "Long live Napoleon." The thoughtless 
called him a madman ; but to-day he guides the destinies of 
an empire. Garibaldi put his foot down firmly in Sicily, 
raised the cry of revolution, drove out a ruling tyrant, and 
offered a kingdom to Victor Emanuel — a kingdom that shall 
yet call Rome its capital, and send sunshine into every Italian 
heart. Joan D'Arc, fired with enthusiasm and inspired by 
avenging angels, led the French army against the English to 
victory — a sample of faith and will-force. Columbus, dreamy 
and visionary, conceived of continents and islands in the West. 
We see him drafting his course; now aweary pilgrim at the 
king's gate, and now at royal courts pleading for ships. At 
length, the wish attained, the sails are hoisted and the prows 
turned; he puts out into the great deep, under the loftiest 
inspiration of faith. The needle trembling, turned from its 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — BEAUTY OF FAITH. ££'7 

accustomed position; strange sea-birds whirled by; storms 
danced their demon-dances in the rigging; but a divine 
current, seemingly, swept them on, till a new world glad- 
dened their vision. Such a faith is the fountain-head, the 
mighty, propelling force we see manifest in the field, the 
shop, the academy, the commercial mart, the studio of the 
artist, the observatory of the astronomer, and the literary 
altitudes attained in American and English universities. 

Beautiful, truly, is a calm, abiding faith — faith in the 
measureless possibilities of humanity — faith in the governing 
guidance of the spiritual heavens — faith in the unchange- 
ability of the divine laws, and faith in the ceaseless, outflow- 
ing love of the Infinite. This kind of faith has more to do 
with the moral nature than the intellect. Science, if touch- 
ing the intellect only, is cold and "chilling, though clear as 
crystal. And philosophy alone, without the warming reli- 
gious influences of love and sympathy, faith and trust, is 
comparable to a glistening iceberg, hugging the human soul 
into a resurrectionless death. 

How sweet and perfect the little child's faith in the parent; 
and how firm should be ours in the innate goodness of every 
human being! Under the ice the water runs; above the 
clouds the sun shines; upon the moldering piles of India and 
the marbled ruins of Greece, mosses are green ; and wild 
vines, clinging, climb sunward. So, nestling under the 
roughest exterior, and growing out from every conscious 
soul, there is something fair and heavenly. Aye, an angel is 
hidden there, awaiting the better, higher conditions to pro- 
duce the Eden-blooms of good works. In every fainting, 
struggling Magdalen are all the divine elements of a Virgin 
Mary; and in every denying, weeping Peter are all the soul- 
prophecies of angelic life — a structural pillar in the present 
to be hewn, polished and fitted into the living church of 
humanity. 

Cherishing this deep faith in the divinity of humanity, in 
the good, the beautiful and the true, Spiritualists should 



288 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

cultivate the tenderest charities, encourage the widest sym- 
pathies, and, despising none, despairing of none, should 
strive everywhere to bring out and build up the pure and 
the holy. 

"Where'er we go in weal or woe, whatever fate befall, 
In sunny glade or forest shade, a Heaven is over all." 

Thinkers, ignoring the forms of faith and theologic dogmas 
of churchmen, consider the creeds fashioned in the last cen- 
tury hardly fitted for spittoons in the present. Asserting a 
true manhood, they stamp them under their feet, and clasp- 
ing the hands of the immortalized, walk up daily on to some 
mount of ascension, to commune with nature and talk with 
the gods. But faith in man and woman, in law and God, 
and faith in an endless progressive existence, involving its 
demonstration ever approximating the divine perfections, 
are necessities of the soul and beautiful as holy. 

"Thither our weak and weary steps are tending; — 
Loved angel friends ! with each frail child abide ! 
Guide us towards Home, where, all our wanderings ending, 
We shall see ye, and, ' shall be satisfied 1 ' " 



Chapter xxxii. 



REPENTANCE. 



" Repent ye ; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." 

" Oh, for those humble, contrite tears, 
Which from repentance flow." 

" How oft in still communion known, 
Those spirits have been sent 
To share the travail of the soul, 
And show it what they meant." 

Repentance implies genuine reformation. The Greek 
word is Metanoia, and literally denotes the soul's recollec- 
tions of its own actions, in such a way, as to produce both 
sorrow and the purpose of amendment. The word occurs 
about sixty times in the New Testament. 

John, the precursor of the Nazarenean Spiritualist, preach- 
ing in the mountains and wildernesses of Syria, under the 
psychologic control and inspiration of Esaias — Isaiah — cried, 
" Repent ye ; " that is, reform, for the kingdom of heaven — 
a more spiritual dispensation — is ripening for acceptance, 
destined to kindle into a richer, rapturous glow our national 
life. 

Repentance in no way indicates security from punishment ; 
nor is it logically allied to any system that promises escape 
from the legitimate consequences attending the violations of 
natural law. Nature, though rigid, is a righteous master. 
Poised, she holds the golden scales of justice — obey and 
enjoy — transgress and suffer. 

19 289 



290 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Vicarious atonements, cradled in ignorance, belong origi- 
nally to the lower social strata of Egyptian life, Jewish cere- 
monies and Christian superstitions — all mere devices to evade 
just penalties. Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, and other intuitive 
thinkers of the eldest ages, avoided introducing atoning sub- 
stitutions into their religious instructions. Not from Jesus, 
but from the policy-inspired Pauline writings of the New 
Testament, do churchmen gather their dogmas of atonement 
and imputed righteousness. 

The soul keenly alive to justice — a justice that would 
punish the guilty only — repudiates such popular church 
doctrines as these, expressed in verse : 

"Just as I am, without one plea, 
But that thy blood was shed for me. 
****** 

Just as I am and waiting not 

To rid my soul of one dark blot, 

To thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot, 

Lamb of God, I come, I come I" 

No crimson sacrifices of slain goats and kids, no sacred 
waters of Gunga, in India, no Grecian draughts of hemlock, 
nor streaming blood from Calvaries, can avail anything, 
even judicially, in saving from the consequences of those 
just penalties, threading Nature's laws, as cause and effect. 

The inebriate's repentance does not save him from the 
past shame, debilit}', degradation and torment, resulting from 
years of physical transgression. The poisoned libations 
daily consumed, impregnating every bone, muscle, sinew, 
nerve, deadening the finer emotions and benumbing the 
mind, leave their stings and scars upon the vital organism ; 
while memory — the " undying worm " — lives to torture the 
mental with humiliation and remorse. These cannot be 
forgiven in the sense of blotting them into a forgetless 
oblivion. The universe knows no loss. But repentance in 
the sense of reformation, lifting the drunkard from the con- 
dition and further practice of the habit, will, by destroying 
the cause, save him from further disciplinary punishment. 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM REPENTENCE. 291 

Effects, however, linger long after the operating causes have 
ceased to act, as rills continue to flow after the storm-clouds 
have settled away in the distance. 

While accepting repentance upon a philosophical basis, 
Spiritualism has no forgiveness in the sense of negating jus- 
tice — none in the sense of warding off just and deserved 
punishment. The original Greek word for forgiveness is 
Aphiemi in the verbal, and Aphesis in the substantive form, 
literally implying "putting or sending away, removal, or 
deliverance from." It is sometimes translated by the Eng- 
lish words (Luke iv : 18), " deliverance " and " liberty " — 
thus : " to preach deliverance to the captives, and to set at 
liberty them that are bound." Punishment, repentance and 
forgiveness, are all clearly illustrated in the wanderings, 
sufferings and return to a father's embrace of the Prodigal 
Son. 

Repentance, implying sorrow and reformation, Jesus 
taught that there was "joy in heaven over one sinner that 
repenteth." This work continues in the future life. The 
republic of the angels spans all worlds. According to the 
" Apostles' creed," Jesus, " crucified, dead and buried, 
descended into heir' — the invisible state — the under-world of 
departed spirits. Speaking of this descent into hell, the cele- 
brated Dr. Campbell confesses that " Jesus' descriptions 
of the abodes of departed souls, were not drawn from the 
writings of the Old Testament, but have a remarkable 
affinity to the descriptions which the Grecian poets have 
given of them." Enriched by the scholarship and companion- 
ship of the evangelist John, and conversant with the Indian, 
Egyptian and Grecian philosophies, this would be perfectly 
natural in Jesus' parabolic descriptions of the future 
existence. 

Admitting, as the " Apostles' creed " affirms — the descent 
into hell — what the purpose ? That prominent disciple, 
Peter, answers : " Jesus put to death in the flesh, but quick- 
ened by the spirit by which he also went and preached unto 
the spirits in prison, which were sometimes disobedient * * * 



292 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

in the days of Noah. * * * For this cause also was the 
gospel preached to them that are dead, that they might be 
judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to 
God in the spirit." — (1 Peter iii : 18, and iv : 6.) Beautiful 
this mission of Jesus preaching to the " dead " — preaching 
the gospel to darkened " spirits in prison." The fact of 
such preaching implies that those listening, could, and would, 
be benefited and permanently reformed by practically actual- 
izing the divine teachings. Jesus' sermon on the mount 
was not his last. Reformers continue their redemptive 
efforts in the world of spirits. This is natural. Teaching 
and being taught is to be the work of eternity. That " cloud 
of witnesses," summering in the magnetic strata that envel- 
ope the earth in concentric- circles, thus testify. 

Marked individualities, nationalities and conditions pertain 
to all lower realms of progressive life. "In my Father's 
house," said Jesus, " are many ma?isions." There are palatial 
homes for the angelic, and prison-houses for " prisoners of 
hope." These prison-spheres are the temporary residences 
of ignorant and angular spirits. Their psychological control 
is not to be courted. It produces disorder. The Apostles 
had power to cast out, or dispossess such. By their " fruits 
ye shall know them." Their emanations, rising like vapory 
flames, correspond to their moral states. To angel eyes these 
aural clouds appear dull, hazy, dark. Light from the celestial, 
heavens streams in divine radiance all through these aromal. 
stratifications. The divine Presence — the heavenly arabula — 
is everywhere manifest. Love encircles all. God and heaven 
triumph. Preceded, therefore, by repentance and reconcil- 
iation, holiness and happiness will be the certain destiny of a 
universe of conscious and reasoning intelligences. All will 
find this heaven — this paradise of bliss — when they are 
spiritually imparadised in God. 



Chapter xxxiii, 



LAW OF JUDGMENT. 



" Justice is a theorem ; punishment is as exact as Euclid ; crime has its 
angles of incidence, and its angles of reflection ; and we men tremble when wo 
perceive in the obscurity of human destiny the lines and figures of that 
enormous geometry which the dunce calls chance, and the thinking man 
Providence." 

"Richer for the storms and trials, 
Finer for the searching fire ; 
Let each flame that scathes thy spirit 
Draw thee to the angels higher." 

Egyptian Judges, occupying official seats of honor, wore, 
as insignia, breast-plates of judgment. Jewish high-priests, 
copying after Egypt, put on the breast-plates, ephod, robe 
and girdle, adding to the breast-plate of judgment the Urim 
and Thummim. Christianity, modified by Buddhism and 
Hellenism, is grafted upon Judaism ; hence the phrases 
judgment-seat and judgment. 

The literal import of the Greek term — Krisis — judgment, 
implies rule, government. As a scriptural doctrine, rightly 
interpreted, it has no reference to a " future general judg- 
ment " in the spirit world. These are among the biblical 
expressions : 

" Sampson judged Israel twenty years." — 1 Sam. viii. 
" According to their ways and doings I judged them " — past time. — 
Ez. xxxvi. : 19. 

" Verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth." — Jer. 9. 

293 



294 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

" I am the Lord which exerciseth loving kindness, judgment, and 
righteousness in the earth." — Ps. 96: 10-13. 

" The Father judgeth no man ; but hath committed all judgment to 
the Son." — John v. : 22. 

" For judgment I am come into this world." — John ix. : 39. 

" As I hear — (clairaudiantly) — I judge ; and my judgment is just ; 
because I seek not mine own will — (medium-like) — but the will of the 
Father."— John v. : 30. 

Judgment and justice are requisites in all moral govern- 
ments. Especially is this true during the growth of souls 
through experiences into high spiritual states of being. 
Divine penalties, as effects, are neither postponed, nor evaded 
by atonements. 

When the immoral and oppressive Felix swayed a sceptre 
of power over a Judean province, the inspired Paul " rea- 
soned with him of righteousness, temperance and judgment 
to come," till he trembled. It was not, however, suffering 
to be endured in an eternity to which he was hastening that 
caused the trembling, but rather of a judgment to come — to 
come to him, to all, as the natural consequences of plunging 
into false relations with divine laws. Man, a moral actor, is 
a subject of law, a responsible being, reaping anguish from 
vice, and enjoyment from virtue. 

Originally the dogma of a future general judgment was an 
Egyptian myth. It has traveled down to us through a Juda- 
ized Christianity. Where volcanic fires concentrate, there 
they burst; where storms gather, there they spend their 
fury ; where and what men sow, there and thai they reap. 
Jesus said expressly, "Now is the judgment of this world." 
Whoever did a base deed, whoever defrauded his brother, and 
slept sweetly through the shades of night? Every man has 
a judgment-seat in his own soul. The recording angel is 
there also. Conscience is judge; reason is judge; truth is 
judge. Before this august tribunal mortals stand each day, 
each hour, approved or condemned. 

Memory is the undying worm. Thoughts, affections, plans, 
accompany souls into the future world. Each there gravitates 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM LAW OF JUDGMENT. 295 

to his own plane. This life determines the commencement 
of the next stage of existence. 

The divine law by which individuals are judged is not 
penned in Vedas or Upanishads, in Old or New Testaments, 
but, mapping the universe, is written in ineffaceble lines of 
light by the breath of the Eternal upon man's mental and 
moral constitution. The highest, the only supreme authority, 
is the voice of God in the soul. All are not equally amenable 
to even human laws. If an}- thing has been demonstrated in 
mental science, it is that hereditary taint may so penetrate 
the substance of an individual's being, as to weaken his will- 
force and put his tendencies into the pathway of perverted 
relations toward that which tends to the highest good. The 
incompatibility of social relationships, ante-natal conditions, 
early education and physical comforts, exercise such an 
influence over individuals as in many respects to absolutely 
control their motives. Such are more the subjects of pity 
and compassion than objects of blame. Instead of peniten- 
tiaries, hospitals and houses of correction should be erected, 
and reform-schools opened for these unfortunates, with wise 
and loving teachers and pleasant surroundings. Said the 
•gentle Jesus, "I come not to condemn, but save the world." 

All being divine in the innermost, the lowest have a dim 
consciousness of the good, the just, the right. In the infinite 
administration, the scales of justice balance. Vice and emen- 
clatory penalties shoot up from the same soil. Tjie thief sees, 
after a time, he has stolen from himself. The deceiver that 
he has deceived himself — not nature, angels, God. The slan- 
derer discovers that his poisoned javelins all return to 
pierce his own heart. All learn that what they throw out 
returns with increase, and that it is impossible to hide away 
from one's conscious selfhood, or escape the legitimate result 
of voluntary acts. Feelings, thoughts, deeds are from the 
inner life, and, changing the relation of things, are, in one 
sense, eternal in their effect. Each sweet hope cherished is 
an immortal flower. Every ill-purpose conceived is a poi- 
sonous breath that lives to blight. Our thoughts, aims, plans 



296 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

are carved upon our spiritual natures. As the woven web 
here, so the garment over there. What responsibilities ! 
Heaven help us to weave life's web well! 

Rocks, trees, flowers, men have radiating emanations — 
atmospheres peculiarly their own. The nature of this elec- 
tric sphere surrounding mortals corresponds to the soul's 
unfoldment. Jesus, ever seeing this magnetic effluence 
through his clairvoyance, " knew what was in man." This 
electric envelope around the gross and depraved is hazy and 
murky. Around the merely intellectual it appears clear, cold 
and positive, with bluish shadings. Around the genial, spir- 
itual and harmonial, it is bright and silvery, mellowing into 
the golden. This idea is elaborated in the Scriptures with 
reference to spirit-clothing. Matthew writes, " The angel 
of the Lord descended from heaven, rolled back the stone 
from the door, * * * and his raiment was white as snow." 
Luke says, " They found the stone rolled away, * * * and 
two men stood by them in shining garments." It is said that 
on the mount, " Jesus's face did shine as the sun, * * * and 
his raiment was white as the light." When Cornelius was 
praying, he says, " A man stood before him in bright cloth- 
ing." The light that shone round about Paul was " above 
the brightness of the sun; " and John, entranced upon the 
Isle of Patmos, perceived that those who had " overcome were 
clothed in white robes." Overcome what? Their perversions, 
passions and earthly appetites. As the flower imbibes the 
dew or sunlight, so, revealed before the heavens, are our 
spheres both seen and felt by ministering angels by whom 
we are thus weighed as in a balance and credited exactly for 
what we are worth in the " Book of Life " — even our own 
soul. Appropriately Paul affirmed, "The saints shall judge 
the world." The chancery angel — judgment and justice — 
is a daily attendant of each through the vicissitudes of our 
eternal pilgrimage. What an incentive to live a pure, divine 
life. 



C: 



-HAPTEF^ XXXIV. 



EVIL SPIRITS. 



"What men call evil, only is 

The germinating seed, 

Fromwhence, by sure development, 

Shall spring good fruit indeed. 
And man all evil shall outgrow, 

In spite of doubts and fears; 

In faith and hope shall plume his wing, 
And soar to brighter spheres." 

Illumined thinkers can never force themselves to believe 
that evil, as an end, essential and absolute, can exist under 
the moral government of an infinite God whose nature is 
goodness, whose essence is love. But, from the stand-point 
of observation, there are conditions and diverse actions, 
resultant of human conduct, designated by moral philoso- 
phers as evil. Comparison is elemental in human nature. 
Contrasts there must be. Can better terms be found to 
express certain qualities, certain properties and relations in 
the physical world, than straight lines and curves, heat and 
cold, light and darkness — better terms to express certain 
moral conditions in the conscious reasoning world than wis- 
dom and folly, truth and error, good and evil? All these 
are relative in significance, of course, and consequently the 
more applicable to men and spirits, as finite existences. 

All counsels, exhortations, commands — all rewards and 
punishments — all praise and reproof in learned bodies — all 
jurisprudence and orderly society, are based upon the 

297 



298 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

ground that men are moral actors and capable of good and 
evil. The reason why moral precepts are addressed to men 
and women rather than to the lower orders of creation, is 
because they have a rational and spiritual nature ; because 
they can understand moral obligation, and are conscious of a 
divine consciousness within them. Moral ability measures 
the extent of moral responsibility. According to the 
original gift, so is the expected measure of the talent. 

That there are educated and ignorant, good and bad men on 
earth, are not debatable propositions. Death, being more 
chemical than psychical, a mere musical ripple upon the 
ocean of life, and neither a spasmodic educator or savior, 
there necessarily must be educated and uneducated, good and 
evil spirits, of higher or lower conditions in the summer and 
winter lands of the future, so constantly peopled from this 
earth. And yet, as on earth, they all constitute a banded 
brotherhood and sisterhood of interests, and are the subjects 
of eternal progression. 

Prof. ¥m. Denton, in a lecture delivered in Music Hall, 
Boston, entitled, " Spiritualism Superior to Christianity," 
said : " N"o wonder that those who believe in this Ortho- 
dox religion, believe also, that we shall be miraculously 
changed at death. But Spiritualism teaches us that spirits 
when they pass from the body to the future life, take with 
them everything which is necessary for their individuality. 
Take out of any one the good or bad tendencies that dis- 
tinguish him, and he will become somebody else immedi- 
ately." 

Admitting an intercommunion between this and the spirit- 
world — a conscious presence of spiritual beings, and of 
minds influencing minds, as among the facts connected with 
the Spiritual Philosophy, it is as natural as evident that all 
classes of spirits may, under conditions adapted to their 
magnetic and spiritual states, impress, inspire, entrance, and 
at times partially, and then again completely, control mortals. 
The higher operating influences are usually denominated 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — EVIL SPIRITS. 299 

enhancements and inspirations ; the lower, possessions and 
obsessions. 

Threading the historic testimony of India, Egypt, China, 
Persia, Syria, Greece, Rome, the medieval ages, down to 
American Indians, we have the same chain of general state- 
ments — by willing or unwilling witnesses — of the existence 
and power of demoniacal spirits. 

We have previously shown by valid authors that the term 
demon is used indiscriminately without reference to the 
moral status of the spirit. In further confirmation, as 
evidence in point, we subjoin the following : 

Demon, in the Greek, is daimon, to know, a god, used like 
Theos and Thea of individual gods It is defined and used 
by scholars, lexicographers and classical writers thus: 

Jones — Demon, " the spirit of a dead man.' ' 

Cudworth — Demon, " a spirit, either angel or fiend." 

Grote, the celebrated Grecian historian, declares that 
" demons and gods were considered the same in Greece." 

Lucianus, a Greek writer, born at Samosata, in Syria, 
used demon in the sense of " departed souls." 

Archbishop Whateley says : "The heathen authors allude 
to possession by a demon (or by a god, for they employ the 
two -words with little or no distinction) as a thing of no 
uncommon occurrence." 

The Psalmist David speaks of the " operation of evil 
angels.' " 

Plato, speaking of a certain class of demons, says : 

" They are demons because prudent and learned. * * * 
Hence, poets say when a good man shall have reached his end, he 
receives a mighty destiny and honor, and becomes a demon according 
to the appellation of prudence." 

Worcester, in his synonyms, says : 

"Demon is sometimes used in a good sense; as, 'The demon of 
Socrates, or the demon of Tasso' — and then, to illustrate, quotes from 
that fine author, Addison : My good demon, who sat at my right 
hand during the course of this whole vision,' " &c. 



300 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

That learned savant, Cardan, honored with the friendship 
of Gregory XIII, says : 

" No man was ever great in any art or action, that did not have a 
demon to aid him." 

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes : 

" Close, close above our heads 
The potent plain of demons spreads; 
Stands to each human soul his own, 
For watch, and ward, and furtherance." 

Dr. Lardner writes: 

" The notion of demons, or the souls of the dead, having power over 
living men, was universally prevalent among the heathen of those 
times, and believed by many Christians. 

" The demons of Paganism, Judaism and Christianity were spirits of 
dead men." 

Euripides, Hipp, v, 141) makes the chorus address 
Phedra : 

" young girl, a god (demon) possesses thee ; it is either Pan, or 
Hecate, or the venerable Corybantes, or Cybele, that agitates thee." 

Dr. Campbell says; 

" All Pagan antiquity affirms that from Titan and Saturn, the poetic 
progeny of Coelus and Terra, down to iEsculapius, Proteus, and Minos, 
all their divinities were ghosts of dead men, and were so regarded by 
the most erudite of the Pagans themselves." 

Bishop Whately ably argues for the " reality of demoniac 
possession," as related in the New Testament, against those 
rationalizing critics who would explain away the narratives 
and the language of Christ himself as simply an " accommo- 
dation" to a vulgar superstition. He shows that the belief 
in spiritual possession was held, not only by the Jews and 
primitive Christians, but generally by heathen antiquity; 
that " the heathen authors allude to possession by a demon 
(or by a god, for they used the two words with little or no 
distinction), as a thing of no uncommon occurrence." He 
tells us that they represent the priests and priestesses of 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — EVIL SPIRITS. 301 

their celebrated oracles as possessed of a spirit of divination 
similar to that of the damsel of Philippi mentioned in the 
Acts of the Apostles. He considers that the agency attri- 
buted to demons in the New Testament, " was not a mere 
fanciful description in figurative language of natural diseases, 
but literally and undoubtedly a fact." 

Certahrchurchites consider all demons " evil spirits" — that 
is, irredeemable, fallen angels. On the other hand, a few 
German Rationalists and many Universalists, theorizing out- 
side of facts, and recently well established principles of 
psychological science, regard " demons," all the spiritual 
beings of the spirit-world, as perfect and holy. The truth 
lies between these extremes. Demons are simply the 
immortalized men of the other life — spirits occupying 
various planes or mansions in that " house not made with 
hands" — the temple of the Eternal. 

The Vedas, Purana3 and Upanishads, abound in references 
to the Devatas and Soors — good angels and subordinate 
celestial beings; and to the Deivs, Asoors and Danoos — evil 
spirits, and the method of destroying their influences. 
Upham says this " doctrine of demons, in full force to- 
day in the island of Ceylon, is older than Buddhism. 
Grotama found it when he there made his appearance, 540 B. 
C. (Ast. Res. viii, 531.) 

The Chaldean philosophy, with whom at Babylon the 
Jews had so much to do, contains an elaborately constructed 
system relative to the obsessional powers of demons. 
Speaking of the devices they employ to carry out their arts 
and selfish schemes, Psallus, quoting from Marcus, of 
Mesopotamia, says : 

" They effect these things not as having dominion over us, and 
carrying us as their slaves withersoever they please, but by suggestion ; 
for applying themselves to the spirit which is within us, they them- 
selves being spirits also, they instil discourses of affections and 
pleasures, not by voice verberating the air,, but by whisper insinuating 
their discourse. ******* 

Tf the insinuating demon be one of the subterraneous kind, he 
distorteth the possessed person, and speaking by him, maketh use of his 



302 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

lingual organs to convey his ideas. * * * Others stop the voice, 
and make the possessed person in all respects like one that is dead." 

No one can fail to see the resemblance between these 
paragraphs and statements, and certain disorderly " spirit 
manifestations" of the New Testament. Take an instance 
from the gospels : 

" And one of the multitude said : Master, I have brought unto 
thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit ; and wheresoever he taketh 
him he teareth him, and he foameth and gnasheth with his teeth, and 
pineth away. * * * And the spirit cried and rent him sore and 
came out of him ; and he was as one dead ; insomuch that many 
said, He is dead." 

The learned Marcus, writing of another kind of demon — 
undeveloped spirit — says : 

" And because it is irrational, void of all intellectual contemplation, 
and is guided by irrational phantasy, it stands not in awe of menaces, 
and for that reason most persons aptly call it dumb and deaf, nor cau 
they who are possessed with it by any other means be freed from it, 
but by the divine favor obtained by fasting and prayer." 

See a similar account in the ninth chapter of Mark, where 
a Jew brought his son to Jesus, possessed with a dumb 
spirit: 

And Jesus asked his father, How long is it since this came unto 
him? And he said, Of a child. * * * If thou canst do anything, 
have compassion on us and help us. 

Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe ; all things are possible 
to him that believeth. 

And straightway the father of the child cried out and said with 
tears, Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief. 

When Jesus saw the people come running together, he rebuked the 
foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou deaf and dumb spirit, I charge thee 
come out of him and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried 
and rent him sore and came out of him, and he was as one dead. 

But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose. 

Then Jesus said to the disciples, This kind can come forth by 
nothing but by prayer and fasting." 

Aware that these demoniacal possessions of the New Testa- 
ment have been the subject of much discussion for centuries 
by the learned, we present certain logical facts for candid 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM EVIL SPIRITS. 303 

consideration. The Christian Fathers, several Neo-Platonic 
writers of eminence, and the most distinguished biblical 
commentators, with great unanimity agree that these 
obsessions literally occurred. The position of " Rationalists" 
and " Universalists" that these demons were nothing- more 
than lunacy, epilepsy and sundry diseases, must seem to 
every sound thinker exceedingly weak and illogical. 

I. The demoniacs of the gospel records and cotemporary 
literature are represented as differing widely from more 
insane and epileptic individuals. In Matt, iv : 24, the Greek 
terms show this contrast in a marked manner. See also 
Luke iv : 33-36. And verse 41, as compared with the 40th, 
presents the contrast still more direct. Dr. Clarke, com- 
menting upon the 24th verse of the 4th of Matt., says, 
" Possessed with devils — demoniacs. Persons possessed by 
evil spirits. This is certainly the plain, obvious meaning of 
demoniac in the Gospels." (Com., Vol. V, p. 62.) 

II. If demons were simply natural, physical diseases, was 
it not a matter of the highest importance that Jesus should 
have undeceived his cotemporaries, Jews and Greeks, upon 
this vital point, thus correcting the erroneous and pernicious 
philosophy of the age ? But he did not in a single instance. 
To say, as some have, he accommodated himself to the pre- 
vailing notions of the times, is simply to say, in the language 
of another, " He who came to bear witness to the truth, 
accommodated himself to a lie." Suppose we were to sub- 
stitute diseases for demons, in the scriptural accounts. Take, 
as an illustration, Mark xvi : 9, reading, " Now when Jesus 
was risen, * * * he appeared first to Mary Magdalen, 
out of whom he had cast seven devils " — daimonia, demons. 
Who, with any scholarly reputation at stake, would assume 
the responsibility of giving us such a rendering and exegesis 
as the following : " Out of whom he had cast seven devils " — 
that is, seven diseases, lunacy lumbago, dyspepsia, rheuma- 
tism, colic, pneumonia and the measles ! 

III. These obsessing demons could not have been diseases 
and lunatics alone, because they conversed intelligently with 



304 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Jesus, uttering propositions undeniably correct, and such as 
were happily adapted to the occasion. On the other hand, 
Jesus addressed these demons — spirits — as thinking, conscious 
individualities, and commanded them, as beings distinct 
from the obsessed or psychologized parties, to leave. The 
Rev. Dr. Wolff", who labored so long as a missionary in 
Asia, informs us, in his "Life and Travels," that obsession 
is common to this day in the East. 

In the writings of the early Church Fathers, — Ignatius, 
Clemens, Origen, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom, 
Ambrose, Augustine, &c, — are frequent references to 
demoniacal obsessions. 

Judge Edmonds in his " Spiritualism as Demonstrated 
from Ancient and Modern History," says : Jesus of 
Nazareth, the founder of the Christian religion, found this 
belief in devils (demons) fast rooted in the Jewish faith at his 
advent to earth! It had not its origin with him. He found 
it there, and recognized it as a truth." 

Porphyry, dwelling largely " upon the folly of invoking 
the gods in making bargains, marriages and such like 
trifles," strenuously condemned the lower phases of 
soothsaying and divination, as tending to obsession. 
Jamblichus, the Ccelo-Syrian who passed to spirit-life in the 
reign of Constantine the Great, wrote largely of the power of 
demons to influence and obsess mortals. * 

In Copeland's Medical Dictionary it is stated that 
Phoenecians and Chaldees considered insanity a species of 
" obsession produced by demons or evil spirits." 

It will be remembered that the famous physicist, and 
English physician, Dr. Grath Wilkinson, published an able 
pamphlet a few years since upon this subject, asking such of 
the medical fraternity especially as were connected with 



*A. E. Carpenter, the energetic agent of the Massachusetts State Mission- 
ary Society, of Spiritualists, and gifted with a clear discrimination, pub- 
lished an able paper based upon facts, (in the Banner of Light, July 25, 1868,) 
relating to obsessions and remarkable spiritual manifestations. 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — EVIL SPIRITS. • 305 

Lunatic Asylums to recognize in Spiritualism — in magnetism 
and spiritualistic treatment — the surest remedies for restor- 
ing the insane and the obsessed, (so-called insane) to sanity 
and a healthy, organic balance. 

Strauss, the celebrated German writer, in one of his 
friendly papers, when making the amende honorable to Kerner 
for his severe criticism upon the " Seeress of Prevorst,'' 
gives the following agreeable description of life beneath 
Kerner's roof: 

" A more beautiful or refined hospitality it would be difficult to 
encounter in any dwelling. Amongst the numerous strangers who 
each year visit Kerner's home, there is not one whose peculiarities arc 
not recognized and to whom especial attention is not paid. * * * 
No wonder is it that here persons tormented by evil spirits seek for aid 
and healing ! The good spirits must infallibly drive away the evil 
demons. An Angel of Peace appears- to brood over this household. A 
sense of order, of quiet gayety and benevolence, is seen to beam from 
all countenances, is felt in all that is beheld and heard." 

Why are evil — undeveloped spirits — allowed to return? 
jWhy does God unbar the gate immortal to all conditions of 
spirit life for every quality of control, knowing that mischief 
will be wrought and misery produced ? As well ask, why 
did God constitute man a moral actor ? Why is suffering 
permitted in this world ? Why does might prevail over 
right ? Why is confidence betrayed, virtue outraged, the 
honest robbed, and peace-men murdered? We must accept 
facts as they are, and build thereon true philosophies. 
What if through such hells humanity must necessarily pass 
to heaven, shall we therefore complain of the divinity that 
educes order from discord ? The rainbow from the cloud, 
the lily from the mud, the crystal spring from the sand, the 
sweet summer from the frozen winter, the immortal from 
the mortal, life from seeming death — is not this development? 
" It must needs be that offences come." Nothing so sancti- 
fies the soul as moral victory over temptations ; must not 
therefore temptations be, as all pictures have shadings 
for expressive sympathy? The right is not in the wrong; 
20 



306 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

but the triumph over wrong. Virtue is not vice, but the 
destruction of vice by the supremacy of virtue. To drive 
away darkness from a room, introduce light. Good is 
primal, eternal — evil is incidental. All endings are like 
beginnings. In spite of evil God governs. 

Like attracts like. Every door must have a hinge to 
swing upon. No evil spirit can approach us unless — morally 
weak — we possess a magnet within, attracting correspond- 
ing influences. This, so painful to endure, is the lesion of 
our frailty, teaching tiie moral necessity of fostering better 
conditions for more heavenly relations. 

Sen.-iriveness to psychological influx, susceptibility to 
mediumistic control, implies higher and lower use,and abuse. 
Will not the tender flower be touched by the frost as well as 
by the sunbeam ? The greater the capacity to rise involves 
a similar capacity to fall. The charm of a darkened demon 
is as potent as an angel's, where a point of ingress is 
possible. Then, according to the apostolic iuj unction of 
John, trust not — " believe not every spirit, but try the 
spirits !" 

If spirits uncultured and evil, impress, and, at times, com- 
pletely obsess mortals, is not the practical of phenomenal 
Spiritualism dangerous ? Yes, dangerous as the sunshine, 
that, falling alike on flowers and thorns, the just and the 
unjust, produces an occasional sun-stroke; dangerous as the 
spring rains that, sweeping away old rickety bridges, carries 
rich alluvial to the valley below; dangerous as steamers, that 
now and then send bodies down to find graves under green 
sea-weeds, whilst on their beneficent missions of inter- 
national commerce ; dangerous as' mining, railroading, 
telegraphing, which develop the hidden wealth of a nation. 
Shall we therefore dispense with them? Shall none pursue 
geological pursuits because Hugh Miller committed suicide 'I 
Briars abound where berries grow. It is one of the offices of 
guardian angels to protect their mediums from the inharmo- 
nious magnetisms of unwise, perverse spirits, and the 
psychological attractions of depraved mortals. 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM EVIL SPIRITS. 307 

Obsessions being adverse, inauspicious, psychological influ- 
ences, cast upon the organism — being the thoughts and feel- 
ings of individuals controlled by such spirits as are necessi- 
tated in accordance with the immutable laws of compensation 
to range for a season the lower plains of life — the preventive 
lies in good health, good nature and a good life; in the 
cultivation of broad, loving, aspirational aims — a firmness of 
moral principle — a determined purpose to do, dare, live the 
right — a calm trust in the overshadowing presence of the 
Infinite, and the holy watch-care of those beautiful angels 
that delight to do the will of heaven. Ill-health, nervous 
affections, dejection, despair, suspicion, jealousies, expose the 
subject to obsessions, or they offer suitable conditions for 
demons inclined to fun, mischief or base schemings, to carry 
out their selfish plans. Truth attracts the true, wisdom the 
wise, love the lovely, charity the charitable, and purity the 
pure of all worlds. 

Kindness and firmness, aspiration and self-reliance, — 
pleasant , physical, social and mental surroundings, with 
gentle, harmonizing, magnetic influences from circles of 
spirit-electricians through noble, pure-minded media — these 
are the remedies. Speak to the obsessing powers as men, 
brothers, friends — reason with them as members of a com- 
mon Father's family, and, at the same time, demagnetizing 
the subject, bring a healthier, purer magnetism, and calmer, 
higher and more elevating influences to the patient's relief. 
Jesus' wonderful power consisted in this : He was the 
child of love — sweet in his nature — harmonial in or^aniza- 
tion — intuitive and inspirational — consecrated and attended 
by a "legion of angels"; all of which peculiarly fitted him 
to " cast out demons " — that is, to dissever by will-power, 
voice and touch, aided by his angels, the magnetic relations 
woven by low spirits around the unfortunate media of his 
time. He " cast seven demons" out of Mary Magdalen — 
that is, he cut the electric chains, or demagnetizing, dissi- 
pated the aural emanations thrown about this woman, thus 
destroying the sympathetic relations and psychological 



308 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

influences thrust upon and into the very tissues of her being 
by those seven demons — spirits. 

Those who lack in organic balance and symmetry of 
mental expression, being negative, and hence sensitive and 
psychologically mediumistic, are the more often subjects of 
disorderly control, during the changes incident to develop- 
ment. Such excite our sympathy. We would brush away 
every tear — relieve them of every thorn-thrust; but in no 
possible way would we convey the thought of their non- 
responsibility. All mortals, as conscious reasoning beings, 
are the subjects of individual responsibility. Of those most 
gifted, the more is required. It is enough to make good 
men sad and angels weep to see the efforts in given direc- 
tions, to fasten all the shortcomings of media upon the 
spirits; thus virtually making the spirit-world a scape-goat 
for all the ills of this ! Influence is not absolute control. 

Socrates and Jesus put forth every possible power to per- 
fect themselves in the highest knowledge and freshest 
mental philosophy of their time. The millions of American 
Spiritualists, when more critically studying the principles of 
life, the necessity of temperamental adaptation, the potency 
of psychologic force, the attractive and repellant relations of 
mind to mind, (whether in or out of human bodies), and 
the special conditions as well as the general laws connected 
with and governing mediumship, will see the indispensability 
of investigating and comprehending science, the importance 
of system, order, purity of purpose, religious association, 
consecration to the best work of the age, and of living lives 
so beautiful and heavenly, that angels will delight to daily put 
our hands into the shining palms of theirs, and lead us up to 
mountains of hourly beatitude. 



Lhaptef^ XXXV. 



HELL. 



"And death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them." — Bible. 

"What Hell may be I know Dot; this I kDow — 
I cannot lose the presence of the Lord ; 
One arm, Humility, takes hold upon 
His dear Humanity ; the other, Love, 
Clasps his Divinity. So where I go 
He goes, and better fire-walled Hell with him 
Than golden-gated Paradise without." — Tauler. 

Evangelical denominations originally preached the doctrine 
of literal hell-torments. Rev. Mr. Benson, Methodist com- 
mentator, says : 

" Infinite justice arrests their guilty souls, and confines them in the 
dark prison of hell, till they have satisfied all its demands by their per- 
sonal sufferings, which, alas ! they can never do. * * He will exert 
all his divine attributes to make them as wretched as the capacity of 
their nature will admit. * * Number the stars in the firmament, 
the drops of rain, sand on the seashore; and when thou hast finished 
the calculation, sit down and number up the ages of woe. Let every 
star, every drop, every grain of sand, represent one million of tormenting 
ages. And know that as many more millions still remain behind, and 
yet as many more behind these, and so on without end." 

The Rev. Mr. Ambrose, in a discourse entitled " Dooms- 
day," pictures the torments of lost souls thus : 

" When the damned have drunken down whole draughts of brimstone 
one day, they must do the same another day. The eye shall be tor- 
mented with the sight of devils, the ears with the hideous yellings and 

309 



310 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

outcries of the damned in flames, the nostrils shall be smothered, as it 
were, with brimstone; the tongue, the hand, the foot, and every part, 
shall fry in flames." 

Rev. Mr. Emmons wrote in his series of sermons : 

" The happiness of the elect in heaven will, in part, consist in wit- 
nessing the torments of the damned in hell. And among these it may 
be their own children, parents, husbands, wives, and friends on earth. 
One part of the business of the blessed is to celebrate the doctrine of 
reprobation. While the decree of reprobation is eternally executing on 
the vessels of wrath, the smoke of their torment will be eternally ascend- 
ing in view of the vessels of mercy, who, instead of taking the part of 
those miserable objects, will say, 'Amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord !' " — 
Emmons's Sermons, xvi. 

" When they (the saints) shall see how great the misery is from which 
God hath saved them, and how great a difference he hath made between 
their state and the state of others who were by nature, and perhaps by 
practice, no more sinful and ill-deserving than they, it will give them 
more a sense of the wonderfulness of God's grace to them. Every time 
they look upon the damned, it will excite in them a lively and admiring 
sense of the grace of God in making them so to differ. The sight of 
hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever." — lb., 
Sermon xi. 

Rev. Mr. Edwards penned these sentiments in his " Prac- 
tical Sermons : " 

" The saints in glory will be far more sensible how dreadful the wrath 
of God is, and will better understand how terrible the sufferings of the 
damned are, yet this will be no occasion of grief to them, but rejoicing. 
They will not be sorry for the damned ; it will cause no uneasiness or 
dissatisfaction to them, but on the contrary, when they see this sight, it 
will occasion rejoicing, and excite them to joyful praises." 

Rev. Thomas Boston, in his " Four-fold State/' informs us 
that — 

11 The godly wife shall applaud the justice of the judge in the con- 
demnation of her ungodly husband. The godly husband shall say amen ! 
to the damnation of her who lay in his bosom ! The godly parent shall 
say halleluiah ! at the passing of the sentence of their ungodly child. 
And the godly child shall from the heart approve the damnation of his 
wicked parents who begot him, and the mother who bore him." — p. 336. 



EXRGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HELL. 811 

Rev. Thomas Vincent, a Calvinistic clergyman of the past, 
indulges in the following strain : 

" This will fill them (the saints) with astonishing admiration and 
wondering joy, when they see some of their near relatives going to hell ; 
their fathers, their mothers, their children, their husbands, their wives, 
their intimate friends and companions, while they themselves are saved ! 
* * * Those affections they now have for relatives out of Christ 
will cease ; and they will not have the least trouble to see them sentenced 
to hell, and thrust into the fiery furnace 1 " 

Rev. James Smith, of the American Tract Society, Cin- 
cinnati, published the following: 

" The fire of hell is such that multitudes of tears will not quench it, 
aud length of time will not burn it out. ' The wrath of God abideth ; 
on the rejecter of Christ. — John iii : 36. 

" Oh, eternity ! eternity ! Who can fathom it ? Mariners have their 
plummet to measure the depths of the sea; but what line or plummet 
shall we use to fathom the depth of eternity ? The breath of the Lord 
kindles the flames of the pit, (Isa. xxx : 33,) and where shall we find 
waters to quench those flames? Oh, Eternity! If all the body of 
the earth and the sea were turned to sand, and all the space up to the 
starry heaven were nothing but sand, and if a little bird should come 
once every thousand years and take away in her bill but a single grain 
from all that heap of sand, what numberless years and ages must be 
spent before the whole of that vast quantity would be carried away. 
Yet if even at the end of all that time the sinner might come out of 
hell, there would be some hope. But that word Forever breaks the 
heart. ' The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.' " 

The Rev. Mr. Walworth, sou of the formerly distinguished 
Chancellor Walworth, of New York, in a discourse describ- 
ing the locality and intensity of hell, said : 

"The Scriptures had invariably spoken of hell as beneatfi us, not 
above or far removed. As heaven was above, and the souls of the 
righteous were said to ascend to heaven, so the damned descended — 
went down into hell. 

"The rich man, tormented in hell, 'lifted up his eyes' and saw 
Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, and to his entreaties for succor and inter- 
cession, Abraham had replied, ' between us and you there is a great gulf 
fixed.' So, too, Christ, in the parable of the marriage feast, said, 
' Take him and bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer 
darkness.' 

" He cited many other texts from Scripture to fix this locality, and 
deduced, as a conclusion therefrom, that hell must necessarily be in the 



312 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

centre of this earth, as in no other way could our conceptions of its 
position beneath us, as defined in the Scriptures, be adequately realized; 
our ideas of what is above us might be infinite as space itself, but there 
could be but one ' beneath,' and that was subterranean. 

" He then inquired into the degree of intensity of this heat, which 
almost passed the bounds of human conception. As a means of approx- 
imating to a result, however, he referred to experiments which had been 
made with a thermometer in Artesian wells and deep mines. Here it 
had been observed that with every fifty feet of depth one degree of 
Fahrenheit had been gained; consequently, at this ratio of increase, it 
would only be necessary to penetrate the crust of the earth twenty-one 
miles, in order to reach a state of heat, in which the granite would be 
molten. Water boils at two hundred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit, 
but it requires two thousand and six hundred degrees to melt rocks. 
This, therefore, was the minimum of the heat of hell, whose frontiers, 
therefore, lie twenty-one miles below the surface of the earth. 

" What would be the duration of the punishment and of these terri- 
ble fires ? Here there was no room left for doubt ! The Church, in 
concurrence with the awful testimony of the Scriptures, had pronounced 
them eternal; Christ himself had said, 'It is better for thee to enter 
life maimed than, having two hands, to go into hell, into the fire that 
shall never be quenched.' It would be vain to attempt to conceive the 
duration of that eternity ; the boldest intellects shrank appalled on the 
very threshold of their inquiry. To illustrate the futility of any such 
attempt, he begged his hearers to picture to themselves one of those 
infinitely small animals, of which millions dwell in a single drop of 
water, and which only the most powerful microscope can reveal to our 
gaze. 

" Let them suppose one of these infinitesimal creatures to consume the 
whole earth, to eat all the leaves of the trees, the fruits of the ground, 
and sand of the seashore, the mountains and the plains, to drink up the 
oceans, lakes and rivers, taking one mouthful in a thousand years, and 
then to devour in turn the sun and the planets and all the visible creatures 
of the universe, and, after the incalculable lapse of time, consider how 
much nearer they would be to the solution of this great mystery ? Not 
one step ; eternity would be as far beyond their contemplation as ever. 

" In these eternal fires every limb and member of our bodies, every 
nerve and muscle and tendon, every part of us, in fire, over which the 
sense of feeling predominated, would be forever racked and tortured 
and yet never consumed. And to these exquisite torments of the body 
would be added the pangs of remorse and stings of conscience." 

This is locating and preaching hell to some purpose. It is 
admirable ! Such square sermonizing is in no way allied to 
this delectable, dodging indefiniteness that characterizes the 
evangelical discourses of the present. Perhaps the mitiga- 
tion, softening and bridging over of that liquid stream of fire_ 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HELL. 313 

form no exception to the general improvement of the age. 
These Orthodox clergy — " fat, oily men, with a roguish 
twinkle in their eyes " — if believing their creeds, certainly 
take the matter of endless hell torments very easy. They 
smile, enjoy good digestion, walk daily over this "twenty- 
one miles" crust of hell, crack jokes, drive good bargains, 
loan money, and do other things quite human. 

The old is passing away. It is effete, barren, dead ! Art, 
science, commerce, poetry, painting, music, telegraphic com- 
munications, in connection with the phenomena and philos- 
ophy of Spiritualism, have all exerted their liberalizing 
tendencies upon the theologies of the times. 

Spiritualists, though utterly rejectingthe commonly received 
orthodox doctrines of hell, as a place of future endless pun- 
ishment, firmly believe in hell — believe in good and evil, 
heaven and hell, as subjective relations and conditions. 

There are four words in the Old and New Testaments 
translated hell : Sheol, Hades, Tartarus and Gehenna. The 
first two — the former Hebrew, and the latter, Greek — are 
synonymous. It is difficult to find English words that 
precisely correspond with them. 

The Orthodox commentator, Dr. Campbell, writes thus of 
Hades : 

" In my judgment, it ought never in the Scriptures to be rendered 
hell, at least in the sense wherein that word is now universally under- 
stood by Christians. In the Old Testament the corresponding word is 
Sheol, which signifies the state of the dead in general, without regard 
to the goodness or badness of the persons, their happiness or misery." 

Dr. Chapman, in his " Critical Notes," assures us that — 

'-' Neither Sheol nor Hades, in themselves considered, have any con- 
nection with future punishment, as will be evident to any man who will 
examine the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint translation." 

The late Professor Stuart left recorded these words : 

" There can be no reasonable doubt that Sheol does most generally 
mean the grave, sepulchre, the world of the dead, in the Old Testament 
scriptures." 



314 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Here are several passages from the Old Testament, where 
Sheol — hell — is rendered grave. Gen. xxxvii. : 35: 

" T will go down into the grave (Sheol or hell) unto my son mourn- 
ing." " Oh, that thou wouldst hide me in the grave" (Sheol or hell). 
Hosea xiii : 14 : "1 will ransom them from the power of the grave ; I 
will redeem them from death; death, I will be thy plagues; 
grave (Sheol or hell) I will BE THY DESTRUCTION." 

These passages show that Jacob expected to go to Sheol — 
hell — to meet his son, and that Job actually prayed to be hid 
. in hell. 

Sheol is found in the Old Testament sixty-four times. It 
is translated three times pit, twenty-nine times grave, thirty- 
two times hell. Hades occurs eleven times in the New Tes- 
tament, translated once grave, ten times hell. The learned 
Parkhurst says : 

'■ Our English, or rather Saxon word hell, in its original signification, 
exactly answers to the Greek word Hades, and denotes a concealed or 
unseen place ; and this sense of the word is still retained in the eastern, 
and especially in the western counties of England. To hele over a thing 
is to cover it." 

Mr. Sabine says : 

"It appears to me that in the time of this translation, hell, pit and 
grave, were synonymous." 

Tartarus, frequently used by the Grecian poets, is described 
in the Iliad as a place far below Hacles. It occurs in the Bible 
but once, and is used in the participle form — Tartarosas. It 
literally implies a portion of Hades — hidden regions. 

There is but one opinion among the erudite concerning 
Gehenna, found twelve times in the Bible. Dr. Campbell 
says : 

" It is originally a compound of two Hebrew words, ge hinnom, the 
valley of Hinnom, a place near Jerusalem, of which we hear first in the 
book of Joshua, xv : 8." 

Rosenmuller says : 

" Gehenna is a Hebrew word, denoting a place near Jerusalem." 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HELL. 315 

Clark says, respecting the passage of Matt, v : 23 : 

" Our Lord here alludes to the valley of the son of Hinnom. This 
place was near Jerusalem," etc. 

These Orthodox scholars were correct is saying Gehenna — 
hell — was a place near Jerusalem, and not in the " centre of 
the earth," nor the future immortal world. The Roman 
Catholics, seemingly more honest, and certainly more pro- 
found in research than Protestants, translate Shoel and Hades 
candidly in giving to the English word hell its original and 
proper meaning, viz : secret, covered — the state of the dead 
without reference to their condition. In the Douay Bible, 
first published in Douay in 1609. among others we find this 
text and sensible note thereon : 

" 1 Sara, ii : 6 : ' The Lord bringeth down to hell (sheol) and bringeth 
back again.' Job xiv : 13 : ' That thou mayest protect me in hell (sheol) 
and hide me till thy wrath pass." Note. — -' Protect me in hell, that is, 
in the state of the dead, and in the place where the souls are kept 
waiting for their Redeemer.'" 

Rev. B. H. Wilson, in an essay relating to the "National 
English Church," alluding to the Limbus Infantum of the 
Catholic Church, says : 

" There may be mansions hereafter for those who are infants in spir- 
itual development— nurseries ; or seed grounds, where the undeveloped 
may grow up under new conditions, the stunted become strong, and the 
perverted restored." 

Liberal sentiments of this character indicate the benev- 
olence of the heart and the rapidity of religious progress. 
That judicious author of the " Serious Call," Wm. Law, in 
one of his best inspirational moments, writes : 

" No hell in any remote place ; no devil that is separate from you ; no 
darkness or pain that is not within you; no anti-Christ, either at Rome 
or England; no furious beast; no fiery dragon, without or apart from 
yourself, can do you any hurt. It is your own hell, your own devil, 
your own beast, your own anti-Christ, your own dragon that lives in 
your own heart's blood, that alone can hurt you." 



316 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Heaven is harmony; hell is discord. Heaven is love and 
puritj'; hell is hate. "The kingdom of heaven is within 
you," said the Galilean teacher. If heaven is within the 
good and pure, hell is within the impure and depraved. It 
implies sorrow, darkness, trouble, regret and remorse. The 
Psalmist, David, because of transgressions, was forced to 
exclaim — " I found sorrow and trouble ; the pains of hell got 
hold of me." This is the experience of all wrong-doers. 
The universe is vocal with warnings. In the sense of an 
escape from just punishment, there is no forgiveness. Com- 
pensation is certain. The "uttermost farthing " must be 
paid. As reaping to sowing, so is misery to vice, or happi- 
ness to virtue. They are as indissolubly connected as the 
pillars that support the universe. 

The comparative darkness attending certain spirits for a 
long period in the land of souls, is only the reflex action 
of their own spiritual states. They generate the mist that 
dims their vision. Life is one lengthened chain. Voluntary 
acts are the links. As to-day is related to to-morrow, and 
as the conduct of youth affects manhood ; so this life's 
thoughts, purposes, deeds, determine the immediate condi- 
tion and position of those entering the immortal world. No 
death-miracle transforms sordid, scheming, wicked men in 
the " twinkling of an eye " to angels. True growth is a 
stranger to abrupt leaps. All progress is gradual. The 
malicious and depraved of this, carrying their hells with 
them, enter the hells or lower spheres of the spirit-life. 
They are in prisons of moral darkness. They lived base, 
and selfish lives. Their affections centered upon earth and 
earthly things, and by an inexorable law of their being they 
are mentally and psychologically imprisoned for a time near 
the surface of this planet. As fish to water, bird to air, so 
the earthly-minded to the grosser strata and aural circles 
belting the earth, till through aspiration, unfoldment, and 
refinement, they become prepared to traverse the starry 
spaces of the higher heavens. 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HELL. 817 

The New Testament scriptures inform us that Jesus, after 
being put to " death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit, 
preached to the spirits in prison." Peter further speaks of 
the "gospel being preached to them that are dead." The 
fact of such preaching implies a moral benefit derived 
therefrom. The divine, uplifting law of progress spans all 
souls, all worlds. Jesus and angels, prophets, martyrs and 
the sainted of all ages, delight in descending to teach in the 
darker spheres of ignorance, as reformers of earth find 
supreme joy in rescuing and redeeming the erring. 

11 1 can but trust that good shall fall 
At last — -far off — at last to all, 
And every winter change to spring.'" 

" Not one life shall be destroyed, 



Or cast as rubbish to the void, 

When God hath made the pile complete." 



Lhaptef^ XXXVI. 



HEAVEN. 



" I saw a new heaven and a new earth. * * * He that overcometh shall 
inherit all things." 

" Sweet land ! I have dreamed of thee." 

"There, all being is eternal; things that cease have ceased to be ; 
All corruption there has perished, there they flourish, strong and free ; 
This mortality is swallowed up of life eternally." 

Brimming with hallowed associations is the delightful 
thought of Heaven. All have friends there whose memories 
are sacred. Trustingly they await our arrival for holy 
re-union. 

"Paradise," writes Dr. Hales, " is the region appropriated 
to good souls." 

Some of the Church Fathers considered paradise one 
division of the under-world; others thought it high in the 
atmosphere, hut helow the dwelling-place of God. Christians 
generally consider it a located place — a city celestial, in 
distant, undefined regions. All fail to discern the obvious 
difference between paradise and heaven. " To him that 
overcometh," declared the ascended Jesus to the medium 
St. John, " I will give to eat of the tree of life that groweth 
in the midst of the paradise of God." 

The terms paradise, heaven, spirit-world, spiritual world, spirit- 
land, summer-land, ftc, used interchangeably, constitute, liter- 
ally, a "confusion of tongues." Unlike in the original, and 

318 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HEAVEN. 319 

having different shades of meaning, they should be employed 
with the nicest discrimination. Angry discussions would 
often be avoided, if words and terms symbolizing ideas, 
were rightly understood and applied. 

Spirit-world, in the best acceptation of the phrase, signifies, 
all space. Each individual is in the spirit world now, though 
encoffined in a mortal body. Vast multitudes people the 
world of unfleshed spirits, who are not in the spiritual world. 
Those only are in the spiritual world, who, through discipline 
and progress, have outgrown the depressing conditions of 
organization with all earthly passions and tendencies. The 
harmonial and blissful graduate from the spiritual world into 
the celestial heavens. Here dwell the pure and holy. Clothed 
in white, and wearing golden girdles, they rush with the 
melodies of star-orbits to other planets and systems, the 
teachers of love and holiness. 

The spirit, or summer land, is real and substantial — more 
substantial to spirits than this earth to mortals. It is beau- 
tifully described by A. J. Davis, in his " Stellar Key." The 
spiritual is the real. As John, entranced on Patmos, saw 
throngs of "angels," "harpers," "thrones," "rainbows," 
"crowns.," "lamps of fire," "seas of glass," "chariots," 
" vials of odors," "golden harps," "trumpets" — as Stephen 
and Paul " looked up into heaven," beholding " spirits and 
angels," and hearing " unspeakable words ; " so the entranced 
and clairvoyant of this age behold delightful fields, landscapes, 
gardens, flowers, fruits, rivers, lakes, fountains, vast assem- 
blages of spirits, musical bands, lyceum gatherings, sportive 
children, schools of design, art galleries, magnificent man- 
sions, and architectural abodes of beauty, where loving hearts 
beat and throb as one. 

All spirits were once mortals. All angels were once spirits. 
The child, the man, the spirit, the angel, the arch-angel, is the 
divine order, corresponding with the musical scale of the 
overarching spirit spheres. Those in the celestial heavens 
are termed angels, because they have advanced beyond the 
taints and selfish loves of their mortal existence. 



320 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

It is difficult to entirely disconnect heaven from surround- 
ing, substantial scenery. It is self-evident that whatever 
exists in the realms of the relative, must exist somewhere. 
All substance has form. If there are organized spiritual 
beings — spirits — there must be extent and limit, bearing 
upon them relationally, and whatever is in extent, must be 
in space, and have some kind of location. Nature knows no 
vacuum. If there is anything not in space, it can have 
neither form nor figure, for figure is defined by logicians to 
be " the limit of extent; " and the human mind cannot con- 
ceive of form without limit, of limit without extent, or extent 
without space. 

Spiritual beings, then, have location, and, in a subordinate 
sense, heaven may be connected with locality ; that is, there 
must be a harmony between the objective and subjective — a 
correspondence, or divine adaptation between spheral strata, 
scenery, surroundings, and those heavenly societies. 

Exalted spirits often speak of their beautiful homes, where 
life is love, — and love is law ; of music, and fountains casting 
their silvery spray* ; of ever-green gardens, isles of entrancing 
loveliness, flowing streams with jeweled banks, harmonial 
congresses of angels and heavenly universities of wisdom. 

When passive and prayerful, our spirit-guide descending 
and describing to us, in voice lute-like and loving, the mag- 
nificence of his celestial residence, ever closes in these thril- 
lingly searching words — " All these shall be thine, child, when 
thou art worthy" " To him that overcometh is the promise of the 
blessed inheritance.'''' 

" Is this the way, sweet angel ? 'Tis, my child ! 
Thou must pass through the tangled, dreary wild, 
If thou wouldst reach the city undented, — 
Thy peaceful home above. 

Angel, I'm weary ! Child, then lean thy head 
Upon my breast ; it was my love that spread 
Thy rugged path ; hope on, till I have said, 
' Rest, rest for aye, above ! ' " 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HEAVEN. 821 

" In my Father's House," said Jesus, " are many mansions. 
I go to prepare a place for you." 

Poets, in their sacred lyrics, frequently sing of heaven as a 
place. 

" There is a land of pure delight, 
Where saints immortal reign." 

****** 

"Mortals ! we travel through a darksome cave ; 
But still, as nearer to the light we draw, 
Fresh gales will meet us from the upper air, 
And wholesome dews of heaven our foreheads lave." 

'•Up above, the host no man can number, 
In white robes, a palm in every hand, 
Each some work sublime forever working 
In the spacious tracts of that great land." 

Cultured and spiritually enlightened, the more advanced 
consider heaven not so much a world in the starry firmament 
as the interior state of the soul. If this is in conscious com- 
munion with God, if at peace with itself, and moving onward 
through the everlasting sweep of being in harmony with the 
unalterable laws of the Infinite, it is in the constant enjoyment 
of heaven. - 

The primal purpose of the spiritual dispensation, with its 
ministering angels, is the building up of the Republic of God 
on earth; and while its continued prayer is " Thy republic 
come," it seeks to establish the truth of universal laws, the 
fruit of good works, the purity of unclefiled consciences, the 
sweet experience of sympathy, charity and forgiveness, the 
innocency of little children, and humility of sincere souls, 
consecrated to the good of humanity. 

Heaven, remember, is a condition of self-balance, harmony 
and happiness, and is attained in all worlds through aspi- 
ration and obedience to divine laws. The spirit land consti- 
tuted of the particles, emanations and etherealized essences 
from this and other earths in the universe — all bathed in the 
sunlight of an eternal morning — is no shadow-realm ; but real 
and permanent — a " city that hath foundation, whose builder 
21 



322 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

and maker is God." Its inhabitants are earnest and untiring 
in their activities. Apostles, martyrs, reformers, continue 
their holy missions. Newton pursues his investigations. 
Fulton's inventive genius finds broader scope for action. 
Mozart sweeps golden harp-strings, toning to harmony the 
discords of the spheres. Philosophers pursue their studies. 
Gardeners continue their pleasing vocations. Geologists 
probe newly-formed earths, and astronomers become enthu- 
siastic in measuring the mighty orbs of space. Spirit life, 
then, is an active life, a social life, a retributive life, a con- 
structive life, a progressive life. Reason, affection, con- 
science and memory, go with us into that world of conscious 
souls. Individualities are eternalities. 

A change of clothing, or a change of place, does not 
change character. Entrance into the future world of spirits, 
will no more affect the moral tendencies of the soul, or 
miraculously give it new directions, desires and aims, than a 
voyage across the Pacific to California, would transform a 
thief into a saint. All grow to be angels by degrees. The 
process of death, with the improved surroundings and condi- 
tions incident thereto, will better each and all only in the 
sense of helping them to more clearly see the true relation 
of things. 

In an inspirational discourse, H. W. Beecher said — 

" We shall enter upon another life divested of many of the hindrances 
and incumbrances of this. * * * * 

" If you take a seed that has ripened in Nova Zembla, and bring it 
into the tropics, and plant it, it will not be what it would have been in 
Nova Zembla, with a short growing season, and the scantiest supply of 
food. It will have, with a long summer, and an abundant supply, a 
growth to which no one would suspect that it could attain, who had 
only seen it grow in the frigid zones. Many things that are shrubs in 
the frigid zones, are high, waving century oaks in the tropics. And so 
men in this life are in conditions which, though fitted to develop the 
earlier stages of human growth, are not fitted to develop the full estate 
of that idea which God has expressed in the creation of man. And we 
may hope that when we bid adieu to our mortal life, we shall leave 
behind some things which are necessary to the exigencies of our condi- 
tion here, but which will not be necessary to our state there. Our 
imagination, our reason, our affections, and our moral sentiments, we 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HEAVEN. 323 

shnl! doubtless carry with us; but the conditions of our life will be so 
different that we shall be like men taken from poverty into abundance; 
from winter into summer; from a cold climate and a frozen soil, into 
f soil never locked by ice, and skies that never know frost. Our life 
there shall be ampler, fuller, nobler than it is here." 

A man cannot become scientific and holy as a garment is 
cleansed by washing. Volition and effort are involved in 
moral purity. Salvation is the result of soul-growth, not 
physical chemistry. 

When a drowning mortal heavily encumbered with thick 
garments, succeeds in throwing them off, he is not saved, nor 
do bis tremulous feet press the shore; but he is in a far better 
condition for reaching it. So the circumstance termed death, 
" one step up higher," puts all the conscious humanity of 
God into better conditions to attain knowledge, wisdom, 
purity, heaven. Salvation then is not mechanical, chemical 
nor cataclysmic; but a gradual interior unfoldment — a coming 
into harmony with divine law — a blissful sequence achieved 
through the exercise of the will, wisdom and love of a moral 
actor. 

There is no such law in the universe as absolute retrogra- 
dation. Spirit is never less than essential spirit. Downward 
tendencies are more in seeming than the real. The prodigal 
son departing for that "far-off country," was spiritually 
approaching the Father. He required the terrible experi- 
ence. Arresting him in his course, the punishment was 
disciplinary. It brought him to himself. It helped the 
Christ triumph over the Adam. 

The primary meaning of the Greek word, Kolasis — punish- 
ment — is pruning or trimming, as of a tree ; severing diseased 
limbs, and cutting away distorted branches to restore it to a 
healthy condition and symmetry of form. 

The growth of plants is intensified and hastened by rich 
soil, clear light and an increased supply of electricity. All 
this may be done in harmony with natural law. Such stimu- 
lants are adapted to the structure of the plants. So the 



324 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

influences, incentives, spiritual light and presence of angel- 
guides extending their shining hands, will exert a mighty 
moral influence in turning spirits, disenthralled from their 
fleshly bodies, towards the more pure and heavenly altitudes 
of perfection. 

"God is a worker. He has thickly strewn 
Infinity with grandeur. God is love. 
He yet shall wipe away Creation's tears, 
And all the worlds shall summer in his smile." 

" One God, one law, one element, 

And one far-off, divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves.'''' 

"jThus heavenward all things tend. For all were once perfect, and 
all must be at length restored" • 

"■ Each is born for a higher destiny than that of earth ; there is a 
realm where rainbows never fade ; where the stars will be out before 
us like islets that slumber on the ocean ; and where the loved beings 
that pass before us like shadows, now will stay in our presence forever ! " 



Chapter xxxyii. 



HISTORIC IMMORTALITY 



" Deep love, the god like in us, still believes 
Its objects are immortal as itself." 

" The form is in the archetype before it appears in the work ; in the divine 
mind before it exists in the creature." 

The immortality of the soul is a doctrine ancient as the 
remotest records. Jesus may have brought it to " light," in 
the estimation of Paul — originally Saul of Tarsus, then a 
bigoted self-willed Jew, wedded to the dim twilight shadows 
of the Old Testament dogmas. But Paul should not have 
presumed upon weighing other men's, and other nations' 
knowledge of " life and immortality" in his personal scales 
of ignorance. India's Vedas, Egypt's Hieroglyphs, and 
Assyria's scrolls, as well as the philosophies of Greece, were 
all aflame with the golden light of " life and immortality," 
thousands of years before the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. 

Doubtless the oldest distinctive statements of man's 
knowledge of a future existence are found in Egypt's sacred 
" Book of the Dead." [These books treat upon the divine 
attributes of the Deity and the destinies of human souls 
after death, who, passing the gates of darkness, were 
introduced into Amenthe, place of departed spirits, to be 
judged. After this trial, they ascended, or descended to 
higher or lower spheres, according to the " deeds done in the 
body." 

325 



326 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Those sublime, old Hindoo Hymns, the Vedas, richly 
abound in the doctrines of " life and immortality." 

" The wise man, to whom pain and pleasure are the same, is formed 
for immortality. * * * The spirit is not a thing of which a man 
may say, it hath been, it is about to be, or is to be hereafter ; for it is 
without birth, ancient, constant and eternal, and is not to be destroyed 
in this its mortal frame. As a man throweth away old garments and 
putteth on new, even so the soul, having quitted its old mortal frames, 
entereth into others which are new." — Bhagavat Geeta. 

" May I arrive at that abode of Vishnu (God) where dwell in bliss the 
men who have been devoted to Him. He who has honored Vishnu with 
libations, becomes his friend in the world above." " Go, give to the 
waters and to the plants thy body which belongs to them : but there is 
an immortal portion ; Hjatavedas, transport it to the world of the 
holy." — Rig Veda. 

" Generation is not a creation of life, but a production of things to 
sense and making them manifest. Neither is change death, but a 
hiding of that which was." — Hermes Trismegistus. 

" He who speaks wisely, moderately, kindly goes (after death) to 
those worlds which are the inexhaustible sources of happiness. He who 
is intelligent, modest, devout, who reverences wisdom, and respects his 
superiors and the aged, goes (o the highest heaven. Sinless among 
the sinful, speaking friendly words to all men, his whole soul melting 
with benevolence, final happiness is within his grasp." — Vishnu 
Purana. 

" There is another invisible, eternal existence superior to this visible 
one, which does not perish when all things perish. Those who attain 
this never return. This is my supreme abode." — Bhagavat Geeta. 

" The soul is immortal ; again, it is incorruptible, it never dieth. * 

* * But when a man who has lived justly dieth, his soul ascend- 
eth to the pure heaven, and lives in the happy cevum with the blessed." 
— Pythagoras. 

One of this Grecian's golden verses is this : 

" When thou shall have laid aside thy body, 

Thou shall rise freed from mortality, 

And become a god (angel) of the kindly skies." 

" Dying, * * * she shall be welcomed by her father, her 
mother, and her brother in that other world." — Sophocles. 

" An honorable and virtuous man, may rest assured as to his future 
fate. The souls of the lawless departing this life suffer punishment. 
But the good lead a life without a tear, among those honored by the 
gods for having always delighted in virtue." — Pindar." 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HISTORIC IMMORTALITY. 827 

'" As they who run a race are not crowned till they have conquered, 
so good men believe that the reward of virtue is not given till after 
death. * * * * Not by lamentations and mournful chants 
ought we to celebrate the funerals of the good, but by hymns; 
for in ceasing to be numbered with mortals, they enter upon the 
heritage of a diviner life." — Plutarch. 

" If my body be overpressed, it must descend to the destined place ; 
nevertheless, my soul shall not descend, but, being a thing immortal, 
shall fly up to high heaven." — Heraclitus. 

"When, therefore, death approaches a man, the mortal part of him 
dies ; but the immortal departs safe and uncorruptible, having with- 
drawn itself from death. The soul, therefore, is most certainly 
immortal and imperishable, and our souls really exist in the world ot' 
spirits. Those who shall have sufficiently purified themselves by 
philosophy [religion], shall live without their bodies received into 
more beautiful mansions. * * * * For the sake of these 
things, we should use every endeavor to acquire virtue and wisdom iu 
this life ; for the reward is noble and the hope is great. A man 
ought then to have confidence about his soul, if during this life he has 
made it beautiful with temperance, justice, fortitude, freedom, and 
truth ; he waits for his entrance into the world of spirits, is one who is 
ready to depart when destiny calls. I shall not remain, I shall 
depart. Do not say then that Socrates is buried ; say that you bury 
my body." — Socrates. 

" This was the end of the best, the wisest, and most just of men, — a 
story which Cicero professed he never read without tears." — Plato. 

" The origin of souls cannot be found upon earth, for there is 
nothing earthly in them. They have faculties which claim to be called 
divine, and which can never be shown to have come to man from any 
source but God. That nature in us which thinks, which knows, which 
lives, is celestial, and for that reason necessarily eternal. God himself 
can be represented only as a free Spirit separate from matter, seeing all 
things, and moving all things, himself ceaselessly working. Of this 
kind, from this nature, is the human soul. * * It cannot be 
destroyed." He represents the aged Cato as exclaiming, " happy 
day when I shall remove from this crowd of mortals, to go and join the 
divine assembly of great souls. Not only shall I meet again there the 
men who have lived godlike on earth; I shall find again my son, to 
whom these aged hands have performed the duties which in the order 
of nature he should have rendered to me. His spirit has never quitted 
me. He departed, turning his eyes upon me and calling on me, for that 
place where he knew I should soon come. If I have borne his loss 
with courage, it is not that my heart was unfeeling, but I consoled 
myself with the thought that our separation would not be long." — 
Cicero. 



328 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

These citations, taken as selected pebbles from an im- 
measurable ocean of evidence, prove that the doctrine of j 
future, immortal existence is as natural to the soul as a heart- 
beat in its casement ; that, like sunlight, it has flowed into 
and bubbled from the spiritual affections of all seers in all 
ages, and become there a prophecy, yea, a positive knowl- 
edge. Even the ruder tribes of earth, less favored with 
the supports of civilization, instinctively entertain this 
truth. The poor Indian of America's wilds, child of fate 
falling before the more savage monopoly of his pale brother, 
is nature's diorama of immortal lights and shades from the 
spirit hunting-grounds. When a brave chief dies, the sur- 
vivors, bending down a sapling pine till the roots jut out, 
place under it the tenantless form, letting the tree spring 
back to its original position, where, spiring up a symbol of 
towering spirituality, it is nourished with the rich " dust to 
dust" and becomes greener and stronger, rising higher 
towards the wierd lands of the hereafter. 

Death strikes no class of persons with such terror as pro- 
fessed Christians. Their sighs, groanings, moanings and 
mourning apparel — black fitting their condition — a church- 
menagerie of sable show and brooding despair — absolutely 
shock the seers and sages of India, Greece, Rome, the mil- 
lions of present Spiritualists, and even the North American 
Indians. 

What consummate bigotry, then, or learned malignity — 
culpable in that they know no better — for clergymen, 
sneering at the manifestations of angel presence, to insist, as 
they do, that the only reliable evidence of immortality is 
revealed in the Bible, or " brought to light" in the his- 
toric resurrection of Jesus ! Even the Hindoo Menu can 
teach them ; " Universal instinct is transcendent law." 
The human soul will burst all fetters, and, child-like, find 

iture a perpetual paradise of immortal fore-gleams, and 
its own inner springs of love the future " river of life" 
flowing into the estuary of eternity. 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — HISTORIC IMMORTALITY. 329 

" Upon the frontier of this bright summer-land, 
We, pilgrims of cankering sorrow, stand : — 
What realm lies forward, with its happier store 

Of forests green and deep, 

Of valleys hushed in sleep, 
And lakes most peaceful ! 'Tis the land 

Of evermore." 



Chapter xxxviil 



RESURRECTION. 



"The grave itself is but a covered bridge, 
Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness." 

" The eye that shuts in a dying hour 
Will open next in bliss ; 
The welcome will sound in the heavenly world 
Ere the farewell is hushed in this." 

" There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall 
there be any more pain ; for the former things are passed away." 

Death, the shade-side of conscious life, is comparable to a 
star, that, fading from telescopic vision, sets to illumine 
others in the siderial heavens ; to a rose that, on a morning 
in June, climbs up the garden wall to bloom the other side. 

The Greek, anastasis, generally translated by the English 
word, resurrection, does not necessarily signif}', that those to 
whom it refers should be physically dead. In the scriptures 
and the classics, it is often applied to the living. Its best 
definition implies a rising, an exaltation, a being lifted up 
higher in regard to condition or circumstance. The learned 
Dr. Campbell says : " It denotes simply being raised from 
inactivity to action, or from obscurity to eminence." 
Anisterni, the verb form, has a signification equally wide, as 
used by Grecian writers, both before and after the Christian 
era. Therefore, in the original, rising from a seat, awaken- 
ing out of sleep, or being promoted to a higher condition, 
may be legitimately, termed an anastasis — a resurrection. 

330 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — RESURRECTION. 831 

Persians, Mahommedans, Jews, and Christians, with very 
few exceptions, believe in the literal resurrection of these 
physical bodies — somata — while the great army of Spirit- 
ualists, in constant converse with the spirit-world, utterly 
repudiates the theory. 

Mineral matter to matter in accordance with gravitation 
and adaptation — dust with its primitive dust — and spirit 
heavenward towards the perfections of Infinite spirit — is 
the immutable law as seen from the spiritual side of this 
question. 

In that Christian writer's work — Dr. Young's — entitled 
"The Last Day," the dogma of the resurrection of the 
mortal body is carried to the ultimate Augustine, hard 
pressed upon the point, of cannibalism, said, "The flesh 
shall be restored to the man in whom it first became 
human flesh, regardless of the changes it may have passed 
through; for it is to be considered as borrowed, and, like 
borrowed money, must be returned to the one from whom 
it was taken." 

Among the most important words of the Episcopal 
creed, are these: "I believe in * * . * the resurrec- 
tion of the body and the life everlasting." 

Brigham Young, the Mormon leader, preaching the 
funeral discourse of elder Heber C. Kimball, said: 

" He has fallen asleep for a certain purpose, to be prepared for a 
glorious resurrection ; and the same Heber C. Kimball, every compo- 
nent particle of his body, from the crown of his head to the soles of his 
feet, will be resurrected, and he, in the flesh, will see God and converse 
with Him ; and see his brethren and associate with them, and they will 
enjoy a happy eternity together." 

The bodies that once walked the New Atlantis Isle — the 
mummied forms of Egypt's cemeteries transferred to fuel, 
or to medicines upon apothecaries shelves — the crumbling 
scattered remains that once peopled those old catacombs, in 
the Via Appia — the organized particles passing into in- 
visible gases, freed by the process of combustion, incident 
to cremation, as practiced by some of the orientals — where 



332 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

are they ? — are they to be raised, and reconstructed to 
constitute the future temples of souls? If so, "flesh and 
blood will inherit the kingdom of God; " though Paul, in 
one of his more highly illuminated moments taught the 
contrary; and further, we sow — bury the veritable body 
which shall be ; though this same apostle said: " We sow not 
that body that shall be." "There is a natural body, and 
there is a spiritual body." These natural, earthly bodies cor- 
respond to the chaff of the wheat — the husks of the corn. 
Harvest-time separates them forever; because the end for 
which they were united has been subserved. So with the 
earthly and spiritual bodies. The death-angel divides them 
forever. 

And just as well expect the blade of wheat to return and 
re-enter the kernel ; the oak, the acorn, the butterfly, the 
chrysalis — or, as reasonably expect songful birds to seek 
their dilapidated nests, taking on, and re-living in their old 
shells, as immortal spirits to return grave-ward in some 
future period, to seek and re-inhabit their earthly bodies. 
Nature knows no retrogression. Our mortal bodies are 
raised only in grasses and grains, forests and fruits ; but our 
conscious souls move on in the line of progress towards the 
great infinite Soul of all things. 

Roger Williams, too liberal for the Puritanic Christianity 
of his time, was banished by Christians afar off among the 
heathen Indians — the Narrac/hansetts, who, in the gentle 
tolerance of Jesus, received him into their weird, wigwam 
homes. The Rev. J. H. McCarty, writing recently relative 
to the importance of erecting a suitable monument over the 
place where his body was interred, says : 

"On digging down into the ' charnel house' it was found that 
everything had passed into oblivion. The shapes of the coffins could 
only be traced by a black line of carbonaceous matter the thickness of 
the edges of the sides of the coffins, with their onds distinctly defined. 
The rusted remains of the hinges and nails, with a few fragments of 
wood and a single round knot, was all that could be gathered from his 
grave. In the grave of his wife there was not a trace of anything save 
a single lock of braided hair which had survived the lapse of more 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — RESURRECTION. 383 

than 180 years. Near the grave stood a venerable apple tree, when 
and by whom planted is not known. This tree Had sent two of its 
main roots into the graves of Mr. and Mrs. Williams. The larger 
root had pushed its way through the earth till it reached the precise 
spot occupied by the skull of Roger Williams. There making a turn as 
if going round the skull, it followed the direction of the back bone to 
the hips. Here it divided into two branches, sending one along each 
leg to the heel, where they both turned upward to the toes. One of 
these roots formed a slight crook at the knee which makes the whole 
bear a very close resemblance to a human form. This singular root is 
preserved with great care, not only as an illustration of an important 
principle in vegetation, but for its historic association. There were 
the graves, emptied of every particle of human dust ! Not a trace of 
anything was left ! " 

The grave emptied of every particle of human dust ! — 
where gone ? Those apple-tree roots, thrusting out their 
hungry feelers, ahsorhed it, to feed a yearly fruitage. Man 
partaking of this fruit, and appropriating it by a law of 
assimilation, it formed a part of their own bodies. The 
inquiry is, who will legitimately claim these elements, pro- 
viding human bodies are to be raised ? 

Motion inheres in all things. Particles in human bodies 

change from seven to twenty-seven years, depending upon 

condition and occupation. Admitting the record, Methu- 

saleh living over nine hundred years, must have had 

some sixty or seventy different bodies — which is to be 

anastasized ! In certain islands of the ocean, savages, 

termed cannibals, killing their enemies, devour their flesh 

and drink their blood; so that the same earthly materials 

form the component parts of two or more individualized 

beino-s. Who is to own them in the resurrection? Where 
o 

Bonaparte fought his most sanguine battles, waved the next 
season golden grain. These harvests were unusually luxuri- 
ant, because blood and muscle, had enriched the soil — a 
soil yielding in turn grains and grazing herds for the sus- 
tenance of man. To whom will these life-materials belong 
when anastasized and re-constructed ? Children, passing as 
withered buds to summer-land spheres of innocence, grow 



5-H DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

in those angel gardens to spiritual manhood and woman- 
hood. Must tlieir beautiful well-rounded forms return at 
the sounding of a resurrection trumpet and, re-entering, be 
compelled to dwell in their infantile bodies ? All these 
physical and moral impossibilities are legitimately connected 
with the resurrection of the body. 

It is often asked, Was not Jesus's physical body raised ? 
These passages give the answer : 

"And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he VAN- 
ISHED out of tlieir sight." 

" Then the same day at evening, when the door.; were shiif, where 
the disciples were assembled, * * * came Jesus and stoud in the 
midst, and saith, Peace be unto you." " After that, he appeared 
in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the 
country." 

These passages affirming that he " stood in their midst, 
the doors being shut;" that after his crucifixion he drew near 
and went with them towards Emmaus, their " eyes being 
holden," that "they knew him not," that he appeared in 
" another form," that he "vanished out of their sight," &c, 
clearly show that it was the spiritual Jesus, clothed with 
the spiritual body that pertains to the resurrection state 
of immortality. The disciples saw him, because clairvoy- 
ant. The conditions destroyed, " he vanished from their 
sight." They "vanished," not he. In the "twinkling of 
an eye" a clairvoyant of normal mediumship can pass 
from the internal to the external. In this sense the 
dieciple withdrew from Jesus. 

Again it is asked, If the physical body of Jesus was not 
raised, what became of it?" We can easily conceive that 
the friends might have removed it before the " watch " was 
set, or that the same angel, who rolled the stone from the 
door of the tomb, might have transported away "the body 
of their Lord." The disposition of that body is of no more 
interest to us than that of Zeno, Plato, or Confucius. The 
important question is — Did the man of Nazareth live? did he 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM RESURRECTION. 835 

walk again in their company clothed with his glorified body ? 
This we believe, as his reputed biography demonstrates. 

Death is the disengagement of the spiritual from the 
fleshly — the severance of the sympathetic copartnership 
between the spiritual and earthly bodies. The thinker will 
note the distinction between the soul and spirit. The old 
philosophers clearly perceived this distinction. Plato con- 
sidered the soul to be ' " the image of the spirit." Paul 
prayed God to "preserve body, soul and spirit." Professor 
Bush, of the New York University, said: 

" As it is through the gross material body that the soul manifests' 
itself in the present world, so are we warranted in believing that it is 
through the soul that the spirit manifests itself in the other world ; in 
other words, it performs for the spirit the office of a body, and is 
consequently so termed." 

Soul and spiritual body, often confounded with spirit, are 
synonymous. We employ the terms, soul and spiritual body 
reciprocally; and, as constituting the man, use this formula 
— Physical body, Spiritual body, Spirit; or, body, soul and 
spirit. 

As the butterfly's folded wing, in its rudimentary state, 
can be traced under the shell of the chrysalis, so the whole 
future, resurrectional body is contained, or wrapped up, in the 
material form, during mortal life. Its release, termed death, 
is really birth. A modern seeress, writing upon the " Phi- 
losophy of Life," well says, "As the physical birth of the 
foetus is death to its placenta envelope, so a spiritual birth is 
death to its physical casket, the body ; or, as the destruction 
of the casket in which the child is developed, implies the 
birth of the physical system, so the destruction or death of 
the physical body implies the birth of its spiritual system." 
Death, as a divine appointment in harmony with natural law, 
and in its time beautiful, is equivalent to spiritual birth, 
giving enlarged freedom to the soul, and increased facilities 
to the spirit for manifestation and perfection. The buds 
swell into flowers wooed by the sunlight; the birdlings burst 



336 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

from their shells for flight on joyous wing; the child, mater- 
nally developed, gains its individual freedom in outer life 
through pain, effort and crying ; so the spasms, throes and 
pantings, sometimes beheld with sympathizing sorrow, are 
but the stragglings of the soul to release itself from the 
coffined walls of its earthly tabernacle. What seems agony 
to us may be pleasure to the emancipated. 

The process of death does not involve the disorganization 
of the spiritual body.. If it is thus absolutely disintegrated 
into scattered particles, by what law is it reorganized ? May 
not more positive individualities, sustained by such elements, 
selfishly appropriate what belongs to another, thus virtually 
involving the destruction of individual identity ? In no 
department of nature does structural disorganization pre- 
cede birth. Here, disorganization is retrogression to the 
individuality thus subjected to the unnatural process of 
unmaking ! The grain does not resolve itself into its original 
elements when ready to be ripened ; the bird does not return 
to its indefinable diffuseness in its shell when plumed for an 
exit ; the animal does not cease to be, for a moment, when 
nature casts it forth for a higher being. 

The spiritual body, composed of the ultimates of all the 
primates, constitutes a symmetrical wholeness of structure, 
and is unitively unfolded from its earthly casket as the rose 
from the rose-bud. The God-principle, pivotal and central 
in man, continually acts, as a divine magnet , by the law of 
necessity, holding the spiritual body to itself in a continuous 
organized unity. The law of attraction, as in a magnet to 
steel, is an infinite law, and as such is equally active during 
physical life, during the process of death, and forever 
thereafter. 

That unformed, cloud-shapen, magnetic mass, seen by 
clairvoyants, hovering over the corpse, is not the scattered 
fragmentary substances of the spiritual body thrown around 
loosely, but the electric emanations and radiations enveloping 
it as aural atmospheres around the earth. Clairvoyants, 
subject to the law of conditions, and, consequently, not 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM RESURRECTION. 337 

always authoritative, may mistake this magnetic envelope 
for the real substance whence it is evolved. 

During the process of death, consciousness, in the seemiug, 
is sometimes suspended, as with those who are suddenly 
ushered into the spirit world by capital punishment, suicide 
or accident, and with those especially whose habits of life, 
given to pernicious gratification, have materialized their 
senses, as if locked in " chains of darkness," Those who 
have lived pure and exalted lives, aglow with truth and 
charity, do not lose their consciousness for a moment, but 
cognize the transition from a darker to a more illumined 
room in the mansions of the Father- 
There are no idiots to the spiritual vision. Imbecility is 
caused by malformation of the physical organization. Enter- 
ing the spirit world, released from ante-natal and social per- 
versions, they immediately commence their upward march 
of knowledge and wisdom. 

Infants are immortal from the sacred moment of embry- 
onic existence. Uniting, the alkali and acid, instantly you 
have the third and higher compound — the salt. So when 
the positive and negative relational forces blend, then and 
there is the divine incarnation. Nature never takes a retro- 
gressive step. If purposely blasted, during the gestative life, 
the spiritual principle remaining undisturbed, and the indi- 
viduality in tact, the tender riven bud is borne by matronly 
angels to the nursery gardens of innocence to be trained in 
the virtues of the spheres. Designed abortion is murder ! 
Multitudes will meet those offended little ones that ought 
to have had a natural, physical birth and the experiences of 
an earthly life, preparatory to a ripened entrance into the 
world of spirits. Prematurely ushered there, the spiritual 
objective being based upon the material, they are necessi- 
tated by a law of their being, to return under heavenly 
guidance to the mediumistic spheres of sympathizing friends 
to gather glimpses of, and participate in, earthly struggles 
and victories. 

22 



338 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Identity is cognate with existence itself. It is the natural 
attribute of spirit — its very impressibility. It depends not 
on form for recognition, but the form on it. Every part of 
the grain we sow is represented in the harvest. Essential 
spirit being inseparable substance, and ever reporting itself 
magnetically, we recognize it by sympathy, the same as a 
child in the darkness knows its mother without the aid ol 
sight or hearing. Our spheres are ourselves extended — our 
very loves and thoughts in telegraphic communication. 
When, therefore, spirits from the mortal lands meet the 
gone before, instantly, by sympathy, they recognize each 
other, and the past, with all its checkered pilgrimages, indel- 
libly engraved on the tablet of memory, rolls in upon the 
consciousness with light and shadow, all in order of relations 
and events, in sweet, unspeakable joy and full of glory. 

The king will know his subjects there — they the more 
kingly now ; the Indian chief will know his tribe there ; the 
teacher, the pupil ; the parent, the cherub child ; congenial 
souls will blend in sweetest fellowship ; harmonial spirits will 
mingle in holiest tenderness; and weary, thorn-crowned pil- 
grims of earth, finding rest, will meet their redeemers, face 
to face. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; " that 
is, die in the sphere of the Christ-life — " they rest from their 
labors, and their works do follow them." The works of the 
good both follow and precede them into the heavenly courts 
of blessedness. Courage, sister ! Every pure thought 
breathed, every generous word uttered, every charitable 
deed wrought, every heart-beat for virtue and peace, will 
live forever ! 

"Beside the toilsome way, 
Lonely and dark, by fruits and flowers unblest, 
Which thy worn feet tread sadly, day by day, 

Longing in vain for rest, 

An angel softly walks, 
With pale, sweet face, and eyes cast meekly down, 
The while from withered leaves and flowerless stalks 

She weaves thy fitting crown." 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — RESURRECTION. 339 

Courage, brother! Martyrs have trodden the paths of 
peril — saints have paced the cold cells — hearts have ached — 
souls have hungered — fires have burned around the forms of 
the faithful — storms and adversities have pelted the prophets 
— eyes have wept tears of blood, and brows platted with 
coronals of persecution, ere the world knew them, or they 
reaped the harvests of their diligent sowing. Courage, 
sister, brother, speaker, medium, worker — courage ! 

A beautiful, guardian angel once said to her mate on earth : 
"Mind echoes to mind; heart throbs with heart. Together 
we will read beauties — together sing one melody of love — 
together twine garlands to deck the brow of sorrow — together 
tread eternal pathways, and bathe in life's fountain of light. 
Yes, together we will sing the song of life — together and 
forever. We shall be there together ; no partings ever there; 
the hands once joined at greeting, shall never be unloosed; 
two buds blossom in one flower. - 1 am ever near thee. Ask 
me not to come. Shall the rose say, I wait for fragrance? 
Does it invite sweetness ? Thus are we united ! " 

" I shall know her there ! I shall know her there, 
By the shining folds of her wavy hair, 
By her faultless form with its airy grace 
That an angel's pen might fail to trace — 
By the holy smile her lips will wear, 
When we meet above, I shall know her there ! 

I shall know her there, and her calm, dark eyes 
Will look in mine with glad surprise, 
When my bark, wild-tost o'er life's rough main, 
The far-off port of heaven shall gain ; 
Though an angel's robe and a crown she wear. 
By the song she sings I shall know her there." 

Existence is unitive — eternal. This life is a hotel in which 
mortals tarry but a little season for rudirnental experiences. 
Earthly furniture is not transferable. 'Ripening through toil 
and suffering, the soul emerges from this chrysalis state, 
through a sweet death-trance, to form new connections and 
go up one step higher in the graduated ascent of creation. 



340 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Not the drooping willow, nor dark cypress ; but myrtle, 
laurel , rose-buds and immortelles are fitting funeral emblems. 
Mourning apparel belongs to the superstitions of the past. 
Pleasant words — cheerful music, should be voiced in the 
calm hour of burial, and cemeteries should be made as 
beautiful as the groves of tropical climes. 

" No gloomy vault, no charnel cell, 

No emblem of decay, 
No solemn sound of passing-bell, 

To echo — ' gone away ; ' 
But angels whisper soft and clear — 
' The loved, now risen, is standing near.' " 



Chapter xxxix. 



PRAYER. 



"If truth the inmost soul and being share, 
The universe becomes a book of prayer." 



" Prayer pushes prayer 

Up into heaven's sublime air." 

— "He gathers the prayers as he stands, 

And they change into flowers in his hands, 

Into garlands of purple and red ; 

And beneath the great arch of the portal, 
Through the streets of the city immortal, 

Is wafted the fragrance they shed." 

Not pre-arranged words or the utterance of measured 
phrases, after the custom of the ancient Pharasee and 
modern hypocrite, but aspiration is prayer, the up-welling 
of the soul's holiest desires and struggles to attain the moral 
altitudes of perfection, the language of the innermost pant- 
ing for the actual, the rising flame, the incense of pure 
thought, the prophecy of a better life, the chariot of love 
bearing us into the realm of the divine. 

Prayer, uttered or repressed, affects no deiiic law or prin- 
ciple. Dews freshen the evening; sunlight bathes the morn- 
ing ; fruits fall in the autumn-time ; meteors descend to the 
earth ; stars move in nightly battalions over the radiant 
plains of heaven, all in accordance with infinite causation, 
reckless of prayers or intercessions. 

341 



342 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

The immutable and unalterable I Am is in no way affected 
by the instabilities of men. Neither smiles nor tears — vices 
nor virtues, nor prayers, change that divine Energy, who is 
" the same yesterday and forever." Prayer expands the soul 
that breathes it, and opens to clearer vision the portals of the 
spirit-world, in which all have the right of citizenship. It 
intromits the petitioner into closer fellowship with heavenly 
hosts, and, imparting a holier baptism, raises him above the 
worthless things of earth. The soul in self-communion feels 
its immensity, its relation to the universe, and its illimitable 
future. And through prayer and meditation, the external 
universe partially reveals its inmost self, and another uni- 
verse within — the subjective — opens in grandeur, seemingly 
limitless before the spirit vision. 

One of our most philosophical writers on Spiritualism, 
purely appreciating the law of prayer, says : 

" When man comes into that department of being where all that is evil 
and false ceases, when every impure and unjust desire and impulse is 
banished, and when the soul, in its yearnings after the divine, puts forth 
all its life and power in humble, submissive prayer — then is such soul 
elevated to the summit of its being, and there is infilled with the living 
presence of Divinity, which makes the whole being radiant with spir- 
itual light. Such a degree of elevation is coming into the ' Mount of 
Transfiguration/ and all who have really been there, have felt its 
blessedness and desired to establish his tabernacle thereon/' 

Jesus, speaking from the inner life, said — 

"When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are ; for 
they love to pray standing in the synagogue and at the corners of the 
slreets to be seen of men. * * * But when thou prayest, enter 
into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father 
which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward 
thee openly." 

James the apostle, in an inspired moment, asked — 

" Is any sick among you ? let him call for the elders of the church ; 
and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil, * * * and the 
prayer of faith shall save the sick." 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM PRAYER. 343 

To plead with God for this or that, " for Christ's sake," is 
churchal, but not philosophical. Prayer moves us, and all 
in sympathy with us, as one chord in a musical instrument 
tones another, bringing us more and more into harmony 
with heavenly order. It is devoid of all virtue without 
practice. The sectarist prays God to send rain in the dry 
season, while the philosopher prays by irrigating his fields 
and gardens. The bigot prays God to feed the poor, whilst 
the philanthropist prays by carrying supplies to their very 
doors. The churchman, partaking of a rich repast, prays 
God to clothe and comfort the widow and the fatherless, and 
expects by these soulless ceremonies to win the special favor 
of heaven. Up from your knees, O Ritualist ! and bestow 
the blessings which you ask God to confer. Golden the age 
when men will do, rather than say their prayers. The Grecian 
drayman received no help from Hercules, though calling in 
prayer, until he put his shoulder to the wheel. 

Invocations to spirits, angels, God — " Jehovah, Jove, or 
Lord" — when bubbling up spontaneously from the inner 
depths, are vitalizing and strengthening to the divine forces 
of the soul. Whether most efficacious, voiced, or breathed 
in calm silence, each must determine. ISTo mortal is inde- 
pendent. Sympathies and destinies blend like the tremulous 
branches of forest trees. Man, dependent as stream upon 
fountain, is fed from the ever-flowing rivers of inspiration. 
Is it not expressive of gratitude, as well as wisdom, then, for 
man to look to God, as drop, rill, stream, lake, all, to the 
immeasurable oceanic fountain of waters ? Thus, aspiring to 
the good and lofty, to angels and arch-angels, we approx- 
imate their states of recipient love, and become illumined 
with the Promethean fires of God's eternal sunshine, our 
souls invited up and standing upon high mountains of holi- 
ness, under the arching rainbows of Infinite Mercy. 

Aspiration knows no bounds ; ideally it measures all 
spaces over which the soul treads; it is the highest form of 
prayer. The immediate object of prayer, then, is to incite 
calmness of spirit. It puts us into an inspirational condition, 



344 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

enabling us to come into rapport with heavenly presences, 
association with whom transforms us into their own moral 
likeness. Companionship with poets makes us poetical ; 
with musicians, musical ; with objects of beauty, beautiful 
in character; with the good, divinely spiritual. Folded 
under the wing of immortal hope, embosomed on the heart 
of the Infinite, thrilled with the pulsations of angel faith, we 
thus ascend higher, higher in thought and purpose — the 
children of God gathered home in the heaven of Love. 



Chapter xl. 



FREEDOM AND FUNCTION OF LOVE. 



"Love is the fulfilling of the law." 

"Come angel ! for I need thy love 

More than the flower the dew, or grass the rain. 
Come angel ! like the mystic dove, 

And let me in thy smiles rejoice and live again ! " 

"Love communes in gentle glances, 
Feet responsive glide in dances, 

Over there ; 
Orange-buds and pure white flowers, 
Lattice the hymenial bowers, 

Over there." 

Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus. 
Love is not merely a white lily undulating upon embosomed 
waters, not an seolean harp murmuring music in the window, 
not the cooing of the turtle doves, but an active principle, a 
divine soul-emotion, the central magnet of our conscious 
existence. Just in the ratio of the soul's unfoldment, love 
becomes subjective, philosophic, idealistic and universal. 
Platonic love, blending with the fraternal, and enzoned by 
the infinite, is exalting beyond all heights of mortal percep- 
tion ; and yet as well talk metaphysics to mummied gorillas, 
as such love, disenthralled of passion and earthliness, to 
those who swelter in the lower brain department of their 
cranial organisms. 

345 



346 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

The inimitable Emerson, determined to preserve his whole- 
ness, and recognizing no one being as absolutely necessary to 
his happiness, says of those early selfish loves: 

" I know how delicious is this cup of love — I existing for you, you 
existing for me ; but it is a child clinging to his toy, an attempt to 
eternize the fireside and nuptial chamber ; to keep the picture alphabet 
through which our first lessons were prettily conveyed. * * * Once 
abroad, we pity those who can forego the magnificence of Nature's Eden 
for candle light and cards. * * * This early dream of love, 
though beautiful, is only one scene in our life-play. In the procession 
of the soul from within outward, it enlarges its circles, like light pro- 
ceeding from an orb. It passes from loving one to loving all ; and so, 
this one beautiful soul opens the divine door through which he enters to 
the society of all true and pure souls. Thus in our first years are we 
put in training for a love which knows neither sex, person, nor parti- 
ality ; but which seeks virtue and wisdom everywhere, to the end of 
increasing virtue and wisdom." 

Say not that Emerson's nature is cold and icy, reflecting 
only the crystalline side of life. To those sufficiently exalted 
rightly to translate him, he is warm, fresh, and golden. His 
soul feeds ours. Abiding in such love, we drink at his living 
fount of ideas, thrive upon his inspirational truths, bathe in 
his dreamy mysticisms, and feel the influx of eternal youth. 

Souls require no introduction. The recognition is intu- 
itional. Meeting a noble soul that knows our soul, we 
indulge the pleasing truth to us, that we knew the loved one 
in a pre-existent state, and delicious were those delicate 
experiences in the sweet realms of blessedness. Too etherial 
were the workings of that inner consciousness, then, to be 
now projected into the external memory of earth's sordid 
masses, cloyed with the cares of this material life. 

"'Tis somewhere told in Eastern story, 
That those who loved once bloomed as flowers 
On the same stem, amid the glory 
Of Eden's green and fragrant bowers; 
And that, though parted oft by fate, 
Yet when the glow of life is ended, 
Each soul again shall find its mate, 
And in one bloom again be blended." 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — LOVE. 347 

While Thomas Carlyle worships force — a king being to 
him the man that can and does — while John Stuart Mill 
continues to scatter incense upon the altar of original ideas, 
be it ours to do homage at the sacred shrine of love — a love 
pure, Platonian and universal. Such germinating from the 
soul's center, summering eternal in the brain's crystal dome, 
and looking tenderly towards the Infinite, incarnated in all 
humanity, is not passional, selfish, nor exacting. It does not 
demand attention, talks not of duty, lusts not after virtue, 
but trusts in principle — law — liberty — God ! 

Beautiful in effect is the medicine of love to the morally 
diseased. It works by an infinitude of methods, but always 
to redemptive ends. When fires, faggots, clanking chains, 
and gloomy penitentiaries had all failed to reform, " the still 
small voice" of love touched the heart-strings, opened a new 
fountain and redeemed the erring. This principle wielded 
by William Penn, tamed the Indian soul and toned it to throb 
in kindness. Wielded by the benignant Howard, it made 
dingy prisons, in Europe, schools of reform. Breathed by 
the great-hearted Oberlin, it transformed many by-corners 
of pollution, in the old world, into blooming gardens. Whis- 
pered by the womanly Elizabeth Fry, it filled those dungeoned 
in houses of refuge and asvlums of outcasts with higher 
thoughts and purer ideals — as sure to produce high, elevating 
influences, as are shivering lightnings to do their missioned 
work. Moral power is the only force ever employed by God, 
or angels, in the divine order of subjugation. It is the 
deepest and mightiest principle in the universe — the silvery 
sea over which mortals sail to the heaven they seek. Oh, it 
is sweet — it is life evermore to breathe the beauty of love ! 

"For love is the theme that the seraph choirs 
Are now hymning through the stars, 
And we catch the strain from their golden lyres, 
When our souls let down their bars." 

Love bears no more relation to lust, than Christ to the 
Adam, than heaven to the hells. Lust is perversity, and is 



348 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

no more love than light is darkness, or good is evil. How 
important clearly to comprehend the occult forces of life, to 
distinguish betw«en use and abuse ! The legitimate purpose 
of Combativeness is not pugilism, but a force-power acting 
in conjunction with benevolence and justice. So the primal 
purpose of Amativeness is not gratification, nor pleasurable 
intoxication, but " the replenishing of the earth." All more 
than this is wasted expenditure, and nature hurjs terrible 
penalties at those who thus destroy their vital forces. The 
legitimacy of the generative plane, under the guidance of 
the wisdom principle, is admissible. 

On the earthly planes of life, reproductions are earthly; in 
the spirit realms, spiritual ; in the celestial, celestial. Angels 
generate thoughts, ideas, redemptive reforms. It is beau- 
tiful to become angelic on earth. There should be a mount 
of ascension, a spiritual birth to each brain organ, a heavenly 
polarity, before physical death. Said Jesus, " Ye must be 
born again ! " Each faculty should be developed on the 
ascending line of divine use. Desire should be gratified 
only when pure, normal and subjected to the highest reason. 

Through ante-natal perversions and individual excesses, 
humanity stands arraigned to-day, degenerate and incomplete. 
The remedy is not in multiplying the causes. God's laws 
are not to be trifled with. Perverted passions that blotch 
the face and cloud the moral nature, are not to be permitted 
to run their course, but to be curbed, controlled, directed and 
lifted to higher fields of action. Nothing could be more 
dangerous than railroad-riding, with the steam-forces neither 
managed nor guided by the engineer. 

To let the "passions flow as rivers from lands to seas," is 
equivalent to saying — let the drunkard drink — drinking 
deeper draughts of liquid poison, will cure inebriation and 
usher in the millenium morn of temperance! Intensifying 
the darkness of a dark apartment, would be considered by a 
scientist a very singular method for producing light. True,, 
the passions are not to be utterly eradicated; but to be sub- 
ordinated to holy uses. They are not, as a loose, slipshod 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — LOVE. 349 

optimism affirms, to have full sway, producing physical hag- 
garclness and spiritual imbecility. Checked, trained, edu- 
cated, as nature-forces, by resurrectional processes, they are 
to rise through the strata of organic being to the arching 
brain faculties, clarified and purified to blend and act in 
harmony with the moral and reasoning brain-regions of 
man's spiritual nature. Mrs. Willard, in her " Sexology," 
makes this pointed statement : 

" It is excessive sexual abuse that produces so much nervous debility 
in men and women. We have inherited it from our ancestors, and we 
transmit it to our children. * * * Houses of infamy and their 
pollutions are not the worst results of sexual abuses, because they are 
confined to them ; they are diffused into families and transmitted to 
children. * * * Sexual commerce is just as bad as self-abuse, 
when carried to the same excess. In a certain sense it is worse." 

In " Memoranda of Persons and Events," A. J. Davis 
testifies that — 

" That misery-promoting abuse of the conjugal relation, called free- 
passionism, is an ' incident ' to the development of mankind out of 
blood into spirit — out of materialism into spirituality — out of prosti- 
tution, into the divine order of society, when moral women will be but 
little lower than the" angels. * * * There is but one true marriage ; 
namely, the marriage of the right man with the right woman, forever." 

The apocalyptic John saw, in vision, " an hundred and 
forty and four thousand," having his Father's name written 
in their foreheads. And he heard the voice of these harpers 
harping with their harps. They sung, as it were, a new 
song, and none could learn the song but the redeemed. * * 
* And the voice said — " These are they which were not 
defiled with women. * * * They enter through the gates 
into the city " — city of the " New Jerusalem " — the angelic 
dispensation that " cometh down from God out of heaven." 

" Starving souls " cannot find supplies on the animal plane. 
Physical commerce cannot satisfy so^?-wants. " That which 
is born of the flesh is flesh." As the beautiful vine in the 
filthy cellar, pale and sickly, needs solar light ; so the soul, 
satiated on the poisons of sensuality, is emaciated and dying 



350 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

— dying for love — for heart-love — for divine love — the solar 
love of angels. 

Hidden deep under soils and sloughs are the nuclei, the 
types and buds of unblown flowers, struggling to rise from 
their sedimental graves into the free, fresh light of heaven. 
So are there mortals who, from pre-natal conditions and 
debasing associations, live and seemingly luxuriate down in 
the lower, back-brain department of their being. Their con- 
dition is deplorable; their suffering must be intense — their 
struggles long and tearful. Far be it from us to condemn 
them. Jesus did not " condemn the woman caught in sin ; " 
but he did say, "Go and sin no more!" White-robed 
angels, standing upon the mountains of the pure and beau- 
tiful, are saying to those — to all — " Come up higher ! " 

All the germinal forces of the soul are divine; the wrong 
comes from their misdirections through material forms; the 
transgression from the ignorant or the wilful abuse of the 
good. Amativeness disrobed of earthliness, turned into 
higher channels, resurrected and actualized, as in angelic 
life, may not only originate, but may be considered the 
synonym of emotional love — a love pure, free and divine, 
working with and inspiring the moral excellence of the 
immortalized in heaven. This love, so spontaneous and 
holy, flowing out in gushing fountains of purity from regen- 
erate souls to all humanity, should be cramped by no chains, 
crushed by no " law-corpse," appropriated by no selfish 
parasite, nor hedged about by the cage-wires and conven- 
tionalities of custom. 

****** ** 

"One night I watched tbe shapeless clouds 
That o'er my mind were rolling, 
Till the clock's slow and measured tones 
The hour of twelve were tolling." 

Then o'er the loved disciples' page 

Was I my vigil keeping: 
I read and mused and read again, 

While all the world was sleeping : 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM LOVE. 851 

And as I mused, I felt a fire 

Within me gently glowing; 
Passion sunk low, as drooping gales 

At hush of eve stop blowing. 

The clouds that o'er my spirit hung 

Gave sweet and gentle warning ; 
They changed to white and purpling flakes 

As at the dawn of morning ; 
And then looked through the countenance, 

Clothed in its sun-bright splendor, 
The ' loved ' who with the saints of old 

Kept holy watch, and tender. 

His robe was white as flakes of snow 

When through the air descending ; 
I saw the clouds beneath him melt, 

And rainbows o'er him bending ; — 
And then a voice, — no, not a voice, — 

A deep and calm revealing 
Came to me like a vesper-strain 

O'er tranquil waters stealing. 

And ever since, that countenance 

Is on my pathway shining ; 
A sun from out a higher sky 

Whose light knows no declining. 
All day it falls upon my road, 

And keeps my feet from straying ; 
And when at night I lay me down 

I fall asleep while praying." 

The tendency of the spiritually minded is from grossness 
to refinement — from promiscuity to chastity — from chastity 
to holiness — from holiness to divinity. The higher the moral 
ambition, the more complete and victorious the virtue ! 
This Adamic battle ground cleared, the kingdom of God has 
come with its newness of life — "Not according to the flesh, 
but according to the spirit." The Apostle John declared 
that he had passed from death unto life ; because he loved 
the brethren. This love can never degenerate into license, 
nor its liberty into anarchy ; for it is a principle, disrobed 
of earthly passion — a holy resurrection. 



352 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

All men are my brothers ; all women, my sisters ; all 
children, my children ; and I am every mortal's child. Deep 
is our interest in every infant born into earth-life. Its des- 
tiny is linked with ours, and our love flows to it free, to all 
humanity free as God's sunlight. 

Let, then, our country be the universe; our home the 
world ; our religion to do good ; our rest wherever a human 
heart beats in harmony with ours; and our desire be to 
enkindle in the breasts of earth's millions the fires of aspi- 
ration, aiding them in their progress up the acclivities of life, 
even to the very gate of heaven. Let all the love that can 
be attracted from our inmost being, be appropriated by the 
poor, and the crushed, and the needy, and the fallen — by you, 
the world, the angels. Then will be actualized the words of 
Jesus — "All mine are thine, and thine are mine." 

During that precious pentecostal hour, when the divine 
afflatus streamed down in rivers of light from angelic abodes, 
not only "many believed," but they were so baptized into 
those unselfish loves of the spiritual world, that they resolved 
to "have all things in common." When these universal 
love-principles are made practical, the soil will be as free to 
all to cultivate as the air they breathe ; gardens will blossom 
and bear fruitage for the poor, and orphans find homes in all 
houses, there drawn by the music of tenderest sympathy ; the 
brows of toiling millions be wreathed with white roses — 
symbols of perpetual peace. 



Chapter xli. 



GENIUS OF SPIRITUALISM. 



" And God will make divinely real 
The highest forms of their ideal." — Chopin. 

" Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. 
For to one is given by the Spirit, the word of wisdom ; to another the word of 
knowledge by the same Spirit ; to another the gifts of healing by the same 
Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another 
discerning of spirits." — Apostle Paul. 

" Upspringing from the buried Old 
I see the New." — Whittier. 

The rapid diffusion of the divine principles involved in 
modern Spiritualism, startling to conservative Protestants, is 
unprecedented in the historic annals of any religious move- 
ment. An accredited church historian estimates that when 
Jesus suffered crucifixion, he had, aside from his apostles 
and a few angular, uneducated disciples, less than three hun- 
dred believers. It is certain that when the ISTicean Council 
assembled early in the third century, there were hardly 
thirty thousand Christians on the face of the earth. ISTow, 
at the expiration of twenty years, numbering millions, Spir- 
itualism has entered the domain of science, art, religion and 
the most acceptable literature of the country. Roman 
Catholicism, seeing Protestantism crumbling into sectarian 
fragments, fears only the rapid march of Spiritualism. 
23 353 



354 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

Waging a war of ideas, the new against the old — know- 
ledge againstcreedal faith — science against sectarianism — free- 
dom against dogmatic formulas, and the broadest liberality 
against an effete theology — denying an arrogant priesthood 
and a catering public press — reckless of popish bulls and 
judicial decisions — heedless of the long-established author- 
ities of Church and State — facing fashion with the religious 
responsibility commonly ascribed to the popular worship — 
Spiritualism, heaven-born and angel-guarded, has moved 
forward to a prominent and enviable position, and now 
shouts in trumpet tones — 

"Sects must unmask to man's diviner needs, 
Kings from their mocking thrones must topple, down ; 
God! in thy name, Humanity yet bleeds, 
But Truth hath risen, and marcheth to renown." 

Spiritualism, a divine eclecticism, is based upon present 
tangible facts, upon past historic testimonies and the soul's 
highest intuitions. In addition to a national organization, 
denominated, " The American Association of Spiritualists," 
Spiritualism has already several energetic State Conven- 
tions; thousands of local societies and circles, sustaining 
lecturers and media; a large number of nourishing Chil- 
dren's Progressive Lyceums; State Missionary organizations, 
sending out efficient workers thoroughly imbued with the 
elements of reform and the heavenly inspirations of the age; 
and not mentioning those known to fame, it has tens of 
thousands of media in private families, who purposely hide 
themselves from the wanton glare of public life. It pub- 
lishes nine periodicals in the United States — weeklies and 
monthlies — and its publishing and yearly book-trade is 
rapidly increasing. 

Notwithstanding the gathered lore and historic records of 
the ages, demonstrating the ministry of spirits, in connection 
with the phenomena of the present, the groping, unthinking 
multitudes reject Spiritualism — reject it precisely as did men, 
in high reputed places, the telegraphic discovery of Prof. 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — GENIUS OF SPIRITUALISM. 355 

Morse. At a banquet in his honor, recently given in New 
York, Prof. Morse said : 

" A brief* narrative of certain events in the early history of the inven- 
tion, when it was a suppliant for aid in the halls of Congress, will give 
the answer to many questions. I must not detain you with too much 
detail, but the contrast of then and now cannot fail at least to amuse 
you. As the narrative is very short, allow me to quote it : 

' House op Representatives, 

'February 21, 1843. 

'ELECTRO AND ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 

' On motion of Mr. Kennedy, of Maryland, the committee took up the 
bill to authorize a series of experiments to be made in order to test the 
merits of Morse's electro magnetic telegraph. The bill appropriates 
$30,000, to be expended under the direction of the Postmaster General. 

' Mr. Cave Johnson wished to have a word to say upon the bill. As 
the present Congress had done much to encourage science, he did not 
wish to see the science of mesmerism neglected and overlooked. He 
therefore proposed that one-half of the appropriation be given to Mr. 
Fisk (a gentleman at that time lecturing in Washington on mesmerism), 
to enable him to carry on experiments as well as Professor Morse. 

' Mr. Houston thought that Millerism should also be included in the 
benefits of the appropriation. 

' Mr. Stanley said he should have no objections to the appropriation 
for mesmeric experiments, provided the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
Johnson) was the subject. (A laugh.) 

' Mr. Cave Johnson said he should have no objections, provided the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Stanley) was the operator. (Great 
laughter.) 

' Several gentlemen called for the reading of the amendment, and it 
was read by the clerk, as follows : 

' Provided that one-half of the said sum shall be appropriated for 
trying mesmeric experiments under the direction of the Secretary of the 
Treasury.' 

' Mr. Mason (of Ohio) rose to a question of order. He maintained 
that the amendment was not bona fide, and that such amendments were 
calculated to injure the character of the House. He appealed to the 
chair to rule the amendment out of order. 

' The Chairman said it was not for him to judge of the motives of 
members in offering amendments, and he could not therefore undertake 
to pronounce the amendment bona fide. Objections might be raised to 
it on the ground that it was not sufficiently analogous in character to 
the bill under consideration ; but, in the opinion of the chair, it would 
require a scientific analysis to determine how far the magnetism of mes- 
merism was analogous to that to be employed in telegraphs (laughter) ; 
he therefore ruled the amendment in order. On taking the vote the 



356 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

amendment was rejected — ayes 22, noes not counted. The bill was 
then laid aside to be reported.' 

" The temper of the House," says Prof. Morse, " is easily inferred from 
this narrative. To those who thus ridiculed the telegraph it was a 
chimera, a visionary dream like mesmerism, rather to be a matter of 
merriment than seriously entertained. Men of character, men of erudi- 
tion, men who, in ordinary affairs, had foresight, were wholly unable to 
forecast the future of the telegraph." 

Sectarists and political partisans, at their Belshazzar feasts, 
make merry over modern Spiritualism in much the same 
style that those clergy and senators in Congress spit their 
venom, in the form of dead jokes and witticisms, upon mes- 
merism and Prof. Morse's telegraphic discoveries. These 
now stand upon the Congressional records, living and "swift 
witnesses" against the short-sightedness of their perpetrators. 
Starved, hunted, persecuted of one generation, to be ban- 
queted and honored with hero-worship in the succeeding, is 
the world's method of expressing gratitude. 

" To-day abhorred ; to-morrow adored, 
So round and round we run." 

"When this youth of twenty years — Spiritualism — puts on 
the full strength of sterling manhood — when it expands into 
the proportions of a moral giant — when its theories and 
prophecies have become established facts — when its visions 
have taken the forms of tangible realities — when, as in the 
Nazarene's time, the " Rulers of the Pharisees " openly 
confess the gospel of spirit communication, then will the 
weak, mimicking masses begin to " banquet " those whom 
to-day it denominates dreamers and enthusiasts. 

As a general definition of Spiritualism, the following is 
submitted : 

Its fundamental idea is, God,.the infinite spirit-presence, 
immanent in all things. 

Its fundamental thought is, joyous communion with spirits 
and angels, and the practical demonstrations of the same 
through the instrumentality of:media. 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — GENIUS OF SPIRITUALISM. 357 

Its fundamental purpose is, to rightly generate, educate 
and spiritualize all the races and nations of the earth. 

Its worship is aspiration; its symbols, circles; its prayers, 
good deeds ; its incense, gentle words ; its sacrament, the wine 
of holy affections ; its baptisms, the fervent pressure of warm 
hands and the sweet breathings of guardian angels; its 
mission, human redemption, and its temple, the universe. 

Spiritualism, considered from its philosophical side, is 
rationalism, from its scientific side naturalism, and from its 
religious side the embodiment of love to God and man, a 
present inspiration and a heavenly ministry. In the year 
nineteen hundred it will be the religion of the enlightened 
world ! 

It underlies all genuine reform movements, physiological, 
temperamental, educational, parental, social, philanthropic 
and religious ; and spanning all human interests with holy 
aim, it seeks to re-construct society upon the principles of a 
universal brotherhood — the strict equality of the sexes. 

Desirous of greater knowledge touching the relations of 
spirit with matter, and of men with God and the intelli- 
gences of the surrounding world of spirits, Spiritualists 
study and reverently interrogate the laws and principles that 
govern the phenomena and occult forces of the universe ; 
the histories of the past, and the experiences of the present, 
anxious to rightly solve those psychologic and spiritual 
problems of the ages — man's origin, capacity, duty and final 
destiny. 

Interrelated with spirit and matter in their varied evolu- 
tions, and with the highest interests consciously connecting 
all worlds, Spiritualism is neither supernatural in philos- 
ophy, nor sectarian in tendency; but broad, catholic and 
progressive — the voiced truth of God through nature to 
the rational soul — a science, philosophy and religion. 

Seen from this mount of vision, it is the " second coming 
of Christ; " not in person, but in principle — the divine prin- 
ciple — the indwelling God — the Christ-principles, of wisdom, 
love, truth. Since the physical coming in Bethlehem, the 



358 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

revolution of a religious cycle has been completed. The 
" New Jerusalem " is descending; the " hope of Israel," and 
the promised " kingdom of heaven," that must be preached 
to all nations. 

The prophecy is now fulfilling. It is waking to higher 
life the inhabitants of India and China; shedding its kind- 
ling glories upon the hills of Hindostan ; beaming in splen- 
dor along the vine-clad foot-hills of South America ; cross- 
ing blue oceans, it is unfurling standards of progress in the 
peopled isles of the deep, and looking down in its might 
from the thrones of England, France and Russia. 

Positive science consists in the discovery, co-ordination 
and practical application of natural laws. All phenomena 
subject to the natural laws are for the same reason suscept- 
ible of becoming the subjects of real science. When once 
admitted that all phenomena, including those of human 
existence, physical, mental, spiritual, are the subjects of 
unchanging natural laws, the circle of scientific research and 
religious aspiration is complete, whether geometrized by the 
inductive or deductive method of reasoning. Spiritualism, 
tolerant as divine, clasps and consecrates to human good the 
true and the beautiful in both science and religion. Seeing 
more to love in the Jove of the Greek than the grim Jeho- 
vah of the Jew — more to admire in the smiling Olympus 
than thundering Sinai — more truth in the teachings of the 
old Platonists than the creeds of " liberal " Christians, and 
more true worshipers, after the pattern of the meditative 
Nazarene, in the living Temple of Nature opening as the 
Pantheon of truth for all races, than in the rented pews of 
bigoted sectarists, it comes to the thinking millions of the 
nineteeth century, joyous with immortality demonstrated, jubi- 
lant with proofs of the future identity and recognition of the 
" loved gone before," and brilliant with precious prophecies 
of the ceaseless march of all conscious intelligences toward 
the higher and purer, even the Infinite. 

"If a man die, shall he live again ? " was the question of 
old. With the masses it has been the problem of all the 



EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — GENIUS OF SPIRITUALISM. 359 

centuries. The mourner, blinded by tears, propounds it to 
the preacher still. In sepulchral tones he breathes only the 
word " Hope," and that tremblingly. But Spiritualism, born 
of heaven and pouring its celestial tides of divine life into 
human souls till they become clear as the crystal waters of 
Paradise, answers the inquiry in the affirmative, and sustains 
it by tangible demonstrations and the testimony of living 
witnesses. ■ 

On the grave of Orthodoxy it is the green couch, arched 
with flowers, for the weary pilgrim. In the worshiping 
temples of " Liberal Christians," wherever an automatic 
Rationalism is brilliantly cold and clammy in heart, or a fierce 
iconoclasm destroys but builds not, it prophesies '" change, 
speed}' change ! " and invites the bewildered devotees to 
listen to what " The Spirit saith unto the churches " — what 
the angel with the seven seals of des f iny in hand, saith : " I 
would that thou wert cold or hot, but because thou art 
lukewarm, I will spue thee out of my mouth." 

Spiritualism, the blossom now of all religions, the soul of 
the body which the past has developed, is adapted to the 
genius of the age and the entire human constitution. It 
addresses his reason and his aspirations. It enlarges the 
understanding, and gives vigorous activity to the intellect. 
Its benefits are not exclusively for the rich or poor, virtuous 
or vicious, happy or unhappy, civilized or savage, but for the 
race of humanity in all its variety of endowments, culture, 
character, needs and circumstances. 

Authoritative, so far as it expresses truth to individual 
consciousness, it stimulates all instinctive aspirations, awa- 
kens the divinest emotions, enkindles the most magnificent 
aims, and, purifying the imagination, strives to perfect the 
whole being. Showing the naturalness of the converse with 
the spirit-world by sympathy, vision, trance, clairaudience, 
impression and inspiration, its tendencies are to elevate and 
spiritualize the affections. Bearing the olive-branch of peace, 
it comes with manifestations and inspirations from heavenly 
worlds, and strives to maintain the republic of God in every 



360 DOCTRINES OF SPIRIXUALISTS. 

heart. It is not destructive alone, but constructive. It 
brings from the chrysalis of old forms, risen men and women 
" clothed in their right minds." It invites the children of 
earth to daily walk the mount of Beatitude, and commune 
with the transfigured who softly glide along the summer land- 
slopes of eternal progress. It extends the shining hands of 
angels who talk of love and sing of the high birth. It wipes 
the tears of sorrow from weeping eyes, breathes the sweet 
breath of tenderness into starving souls, and, sweeping away 
the lingering clouds of death, bids all God's dear humanity 
tread the pearl-paved paths traversed by the triumphal armies 
of heaven. Oh, how resfreshing, burdened with cares and 
crosses, to catch occasional breezes from Eden-lands, and 
songs of encouragement from immortalized hosts of reform- 
ers, martyrs, apostles, prophets ! Lifting the glass of 
memory and reverting backward, it reveals the eternal pur- 
pose of good from seeming evil — of sorrow blossoming into 
joys, of thorns transformed into roses, and tears crystalizing 
into pearls of matchless brilliancy. Musical with the love- 
ministries of angels, it is a perpetual baptism from on high, 
a continual regeneration, a succession of higher births and 
endless privileges, a gentle dispensation of divine love guided 
by wisdom, the strength of the weary, the balm of healing for 
the sick, the consolation of the dying, the comfort of the 
mourner, and the sweetest answer to prayer ! As a moral 
power in the world, its influence is exalting, its purpose 
uplifting, its work apostolic, its inspiration continuous, and, 
with improved implements suitable for all redemptive pur- 
poses, its great design is to lift humanity, through angel 
ministry, into higher physical, mental and spiritual condi- 
tions, preparatory to that future, progressive existence that 
stretches in increasing love-lines along the measureless eras 
of eternity. 

Spiritualism, the desire of all nations, symbolized by 
"light," beautifully expresses the out-flowing love of God— 



EXRGETICAL SPIRITUALISM — GENIUS OF SPIRITUALISM. 861 

the divine principle of holiness— the indwelling Christ-prin- 
ciple of love and salvation — the Arabula — the comforter — 
the divine guest — the Savior of the world. 

Incidentally, Spiritualism incites unflinching action on the 
plane of moral principle; renders one tenderly sympathetic ; 
reasonable and rational, and, subjecting the passions to wis- 
dom and virtue, it awakens holy, emotional affections, rooted 
in God. It induces fidelity to promise, and abounds with 
charity. 

"There is a grandeur in the Soul that dares 
Live out all the life God lit within ; 
That battles with the passions hand to hand, 
And wears no mail and hides behind no shield ! 
That plucks its joy in the shadow of Death's wing — 
That drains with one deep draught the wine of Life, 
And that with fearless foot and heaven-turned eyes, 
May stand upon a dizzy precipice, 
High o'er the abyss of ruin, and not fall .' " 

Facing the frowning Alps, the impassioned Napoleon said : 
" Officers ! soldiers ! the eyes of all Europe are upon you — 
conduct yourselves accordingly ! " 

Spiritualist! the eyes of the church, of the world, of the 
angels, are upon thee; conduct thyself accordingly ! Quit 
thyself like a man. So guide thy bark, that though it 
flounder in tempestuous seas, it may right itself again for a 
safer voyage. Live to-day for to-morrow, for eternity. Be 
above the commission of an unworthy act. Tread not on 
the threshold of thy neighbor only with the purest and 
loftiest intentions. Filch no entrusted secrets from others. 
Indulge in no ignoble insinuations. Take no selfish advan- 
tage of another's weakness. Be candid and sincere. Affirm 
thyself. Celebrate thyself in goodness. Testify of thyself 
in integrity. Be a practical reformer. Seek no praise, nor 
fulsome flattery. Intrigue for no office. Fail of thy pur^ 
pose rather than secure it by dishonorable policy. Partake 
of the bread of honest labor. Administer reproof in gentle- 
ness and love. Forgive as thou wouldst be forgiven. Kind 



362 DOCTRINES OF SPIRITUALISTS. 

to the poor, the unfortunate, the sick, the dying — live to lift 
up others, to brighten the chain of friendship, to educate 
mind and heart for a heaven on earth. Enflower the path- 
way of humanity with the beautiful in life ; plant gardens of 
love in unhappy bosoms; welcome the angels to angelize the 
shades of our pilgrimage, and be welcomed into light, the 
sweet light, the music light of Immortality ! 



LONTENTS. 



General Divisions. 
PREFATORY. 



rage. 

1. — Greeting to Aaron Nite >J- 4 

2. — The Horoscope 5- 10 

I. SPIRIT OF THE PRESENT AGE. 

Chap. I. — Spirit of the Age 13- 19 

II. — Spiritual Ratios 20- 22 

II. ANCIENT HISTORIC SPIRITUALISM. 

Chap. III.— Indian 25- 30 

IV.— Egyptian 31- 35 

V.— Chinese 36- 40 

VI.— Persian 41- 43 

VII.— Hebraic 44- 52 

VIII.— Grecian 53- 67 

IX.— Roman 68- 74 

III. CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALISM. 

Chap. X. — The Foreshadowing 77- 79 

XI.— Mythic 80- 88 

XII.— Theologic 89- 93 

XIII.— The Nazarene 94-110 

IV. MEDIEVAL SPIRITUALISM. 

Chap. XIV.— Transitional 113-117 

XV.— Apostolic 118-120 

XVI.— Post-Apostolic 121-128 

XVII.— Neo-Platonic 129-135 

XVIII.— Churchianic 139-187 

363 



364 CONTENTS. 

V. MODERN SPIRITUALISM/ 

Chap. XIX.— The Prelude 191-194 

XX. — Spirit Phenomena 197-202 

XXL— Mediumship 203-206 

XXII.— Witnesses 207-215 

XXIII. — Clerical and Literary 216-246 

XXIV.— Poetic Testimony 247-253 

VI. EXEGETICAL SPIRITUALISM. 

Chap. XXV.— Existence of God 254-260 

XXVL— The Divine Image 261-264 

XXVII.-Mob.al Status of Jesus 265-272 

XXVIIL— The Holy Spirit 273-276 

XXIX.— Baptism 277-279 

XXX.— Inspiration 280-284 

XXXL— Beauty of Faith 285-288 

XXXIL— Repentance 289-292 

XXXIIL— Law of Judgment 293-296 

XXXIV.— Evil Spirits 297-308 

XXXV.— Hell 309-317 

XXXVL— Heaven 318-324 

XXXVIL— Historic Immortality 325-329 

XXXVIIL— Resurrection 330-340 

XXXIX.— Prayer 341-344 

XL. — Freedom amd Function of Love 345-352 

XLI. — Genius of Spiritualism 853-362 



Tndex. 






/ 



LPHABETICAL CLASSIFICATION. 



PAGE. 

Abraham — 

Brahminic 28 

Agkippa 149 

Alexandria 

Eclectic School 129 

Ambrose 127 

Angels — 

National superin- 
tendence 122, 125 

Incarnation 125 

Reverence for 148 

Higher thanspirits319 
Ministers of God... 49 
Names of.27, 39 49,114 

Congresses 192, 193 

Guardians 115 

Angles — 

Symbolic 10 

Ante-Natal — 

Perversities 348 

Of Jesus 79, 94 

Appollinaris 119 

Apolontts — 

Guarded by spirits. 114 

Apostolic Fathers..118 

Apparitions 72 

Aristides — 

On healing 61 

Atonement 290 

Augustine 127 

Beautiful testimo- 
ny 141 

Aubrey, John — 

Exorcisms 163 

Barne, Rev. Dr. A. — 
Testimony 237 

Baxter, Richard — 
Testimony 162 



page. 
Baptism — 

Spiritual 277 

Water baptism 278 

Spiritualized water 279 
Ballou, Adin — 

Testimony 229 

Ballou, Dr. Eli — 

Testimony 229 

Babel 48 

Bacon, Lord — 

Testimony 160 

Bacon, Roger 143 

Beveredge, Bishop — 

Testimony 155 

Beethoven 171 

Beecher, H. W. — 

Testimony 217 

Beauty of Faith. .....285 

Bell, Robert — 

Testimony 241 

Bhagavat Gita 81 

Antiquity of 84, 85 

Bible — 

Canonical voting... 95 

Translators of 96 

Inner sense 159 

Blake, William — 

Testimony 166 

Bodin 149 

Bceiimen, Jacob — 

Testimony 158 

Bread of Life 15 

For spirits 43 

Brahmins — 

Sacred Books 27 

Deific ideas 27 

Bronte, Charlotte — 

Testimony 233-4 

365 



PAGE. 

Bruno, Giordano — 
Testimony 157 

Brown, Sir Thomas — 
Testimony 160 

Buddha 97 

Butler, Bishop — 

Testimony 155 

Cary, Phebe — 

Testimony 249 

Cardamus, Jerome. ..157 

Cerenthus — 

Testimony 116 

Church — 

Anglican 156 

Private circles 156 

Divorced from reas- 
on 166 

For the age 18 

Protestant 147 

English 152 

Catholic fidelity 146 

Uninspirational 152 

"Slough of Des- 
pond " 153 

Sectarian uses 15 

Decaying tenden- 
cies 17 

Greek 142 

Church Fathers — 
Immoral teachings. 88 

Evil spirits 115 

Spiritual gifts 121 

Miracles 125 

Churchianic 139 

Chapin, Rev. E. H. — 
Testimony 219 

Channing, Rev. W. E. — 
Testimony 224 



366 



INDEX. 



PAGE. 

Chinese — 

Measure of time... 26 

Chronology of 26 

Bible of 36 

China — 

Mental structure... 36 
By Burlingame 88 

Christ — 

Theologic 89 

Chalda in India 28 

Christianity — 

Primitive 105 

Chris una — 
Identical with 

Christ 81, 83, 85 

Incarnation 82 

Education of 82 

Miracles 83 

Birth 83 

Descent to Hades... 83 

Antiquity of 84 

Worship of. 85 

Circles — 

Spiritual 205 

When needless 206 

Law of. .' 191 

Pentecostal 274 

Symbol of India... 8 

Waves of 22 

Ethereal 32 

Civilization — 
Western movements 
266 

Cicero 148 

Clarke, Adam — 

Testimony 181 

Clairvoyance 151 

Highlanders 164 

Animals ..164 

Thomas Say 175 

John Murray 184 

In Asia 141 

Clairvoyants — 

Mistakes of. 336 

Clergymen — 

Refusing light 200 

Cowardice of. 243 

Inconsistency of. ...313 

Injustice of. 61 

Deceptions 81, 85 

Coleridge — 

Testimony 248 

Conic Sections 258 

Congressional Big- 
otry 355 

Constantinian Era.. 139 



page. 

Confusion of Tongues 
48 

Confucius — 

Spiritual character 39 

Cranmer 153 

Creation — 

Duality of 13 

Creeds — 

Athanasian 90 

Plan of salvation... 91 

Cross — 

Spiritual sign 140 

Cyprian 125 

Dannecker 159 

Davenport Brothers 
209 

Debes — 

Angel healing 162 

Demons — 

Classical and scrip- 
tural .299 

Worshiped 34 

Good and bad 5q 

Mission of 56 

Miracles 153 

Demon — 

Of Socrates 58-9 

Death — 

Not redemptive... 322-3 
Professed Chris- 
tians 328 

Birth 335 

Dissolves not spirit336 

When conscious 337 

Ascension 67 

Incarnation 66 

Deluge...,. 46 

Divine Image 261 

Unity of 264 

Divination 69 

Edmunds, Judge — 
Testimony 207 

Egypt — 

Psychological char- 
acteristics 9 

Wisdom of..... 31 

Colonized by India. 45 

Egyptian Jurispru- 
dence 32 

Elkin, Rev. H. — 

Testimony. ..231 

Epimenides — 

France 61 

Poetical 61 

Essenians — 

Mystic science 97 



page. 

Essenians — 

Physicians 98-9 

Pythagoric 98 

Lineage 98 

Morality ...100 

Social system 100 

Diffusive 100 

Evil 297 

Relative 297, 306 

In spirit life 298 

Uses of 305 

Evil Spirits— 

Ministrants 298 

Exorcism — 

Law of.. ........ 123, 163 

Method of Fathers.125 

By Apollinaris 119 

By Jesus 302 

Faith 297 

Defined 285 

Spiritual correla- 
tion 286 

Practical 286-7 

Funeral emblems. ..340 

Fisk, Rev. Dr. — 

Testimony 230 

Fletcher, Rev. — 

Testimony 180 

Fox, George 161 

Freedom and Func- 
tion of Love 345 

Friends of God 145 

G\rrison, Wm. L. — 
Testimony 236 

Gassner, Dr. — 

Prophecy 168 

Ghost — 

Translation of. 273 

Genius of Spiritual- 
ism 353 

Gnosticism — 

Origin of 81 

Inductional 130 

Gnostics — 

Concerning Jeho- 

veh 28 

Spirits ascended ... 62 
Representatives 130 

Gowdy, Rev. G. S. — 
Testimony 228 

Golden Rule 104 

God— 

Absolute and rela- 
tive 254 

Inner soul 255 

Defined 250 



INDEX. 



367 



PAGE. 

God— 

Consciousness of.. ..256 

Unprogressive 257 

Father and Mother.259 
Order of manifesta- 
tion 259 

Voice of the pres- 
ent 15 

Pythagoric 102 

Testimony of an- 
cients 102 

Duality of 114 

Revealed by angels. 122 

Greely, Horace — 

Testimony ...234 

Greece— 

Psychological 

structure.... 53 

Oracular religion... 54 
Mythology and the- 
ology 62 

Gregory ..127 

Gregory VII 143 

Grossetete, Bishop..145 

Guizot 140 

Gymnosophists — 

Wisdom of. 98 

Haunted Houses — 

Obsessed 163 

Baxter's statement. 163 
Homes of spirits ...142 

Hades — 
Of the Greeks 66 

Hall, Bishop 154 

Hepworth, Rev. G. H. — 
Testimony 226 

Hellenists 267 

Knowledge of gods 56 

Hell — 

Description of.309-312 
Biblical Exegesis ..813 
Spiritual view 316 

Heaven — 

Names of 318 

Local 320 

Promise of...320, 338-9 

On earth 321 

Conditional 321 

Employments 322 

Hebrewism — 

From India 28 

Origin of Scrip- 
tures 44 

Theology 45 

Civilization Egyp- 
tian 54 



page. 

Heathen^ — 

Scholarship of 103 

Hermas ....124 

Historic Immortal- 
ity 325 

Hierombalus — 

Priest of lao 28 

History — 

Psychological 6 

Hindoos — 

Originally not idol- 
ators 28 

Howitt, Wm. — 

Testimony 238 

Horoscope..... 5 

Homer — 

Guardians of 55 

Iliad and Ramaya- 
na 55 

Hooker, Judicious — 
Testimony 154 

Human Brotherhood — 
103 

Hugo, Victor — 

Testimony 237-8 

Hume — 

Seances 209 

Ignatius .....119 

Immortality — 

Basis of 262, 264 

Platonian 57 

Socrates' view of.. 59 

Animals 262 

Universal belief... ..263 

Ancient testimony. .326 

. N. A. Indians 328 

Imagination — 

Effects.of. 157 

Founded in facts. ..266 

Indians — 

Infant seership 164 

Abuse of. 186-7 

India — 

Historic greatness.. 25 

Philosophy 27 

Mother of tribes ... 29 

Insanity — 

Obsessions... 304 

Cure for...., .305 

Infidels — 

Honesty of 200 

Infanticide 337 

Inscriptions — 

Hindoo 84 

Golden ages 198 

Inspiration 280 



page. 
Inspiration — 

Signs of 35 

Poetical 61 

Varied to condi- 
tions 281 

General and special 282 

Perpetual 283 

Sacred everywhere 284 

Iren^eus 121 

Irving, Washington — 

Testimony 233 

Island — 

Ancient, now ex- 
tinct 26 

Israel — 

Mental structure... 44 

Jamblichus , 133 

Jesus — 

Moral status.. 265 

National culmina- 
tion 265 

Real personage 266 

Brother man 268 

Faithful 269 

Progress of 269 

Exorcising ...307 

Scholarship 60 

Prophecy of 78 

Ante-natal 79, 94 

Associations 95 

In Egypt 96, 97 

Essenian 97, 99 

Interior life 101 

Doctrines derived 103 

Precepts of. 106 

Character of 107 

Mediumship 107 

Cotemporaries 113 

Jehovah — 

Priestly origin 34 

Jeud 46 

An angel...49, 115, 117 
Jews — 

Inferior to Classics 46 

Jerome 127 

Joan d'Arc 157 

Josephine 169 

John 268 

Scholarship of 81 

Jones, Sir William.. 26 

Justin, Martyr 122 

Judaism Paganized. ..139 
Julian, the Apostate 

141 

Judgment — 

Biblical 294 



368 



INDEX. 



PAGE. 

Judgment — 

Inward law. ...294, 295 

Spiritual 296 

Kabbala 41 

Ker, Eev. W.— 

Testimony 232 

Kerner 305 

Knox, John 164 

Secret Spiritualist. 165 
Language — 

Hebrew 26 

Sancrit 26, 38 

Shemitic 27 

Lao-tse 39 

Latimer 153 

Lee, Ann 182 

Le Can 36 

Lincoln, Abraham. ..242 
Livermore, Mrs. M. A. 

Testimony 250 

Literature — 

Homeric 80 

Hindoo 80 

Louis XVI 168 

London Times — 

Testimony 237 

Longfellow — 

Testimony 249-9 

Lowell — 

Testimony 253 

Love — 

Selfish 346 

Not lust 348 

Purely free 350 

Progressive '350 

Universal 352 

Luther, Martin 145 

Roaring Devil 146 

Healing power 147 

Man and Woman 261 

Marriage 349 

Magnetic Telegraph 

355 

Mather, Cotton ......165 

Maria Antoinette. ..168 
Madame Elizabeth... 169 

Mayo, Rev. A. D 227 

Matter and Spirit. ..257 

Magic Staff 33 

Magicians — 

Persian 41 

Magic 43 

Rivalship 50 

"Wisdom" 50 

Manetho — 
On Hebrews 45 



page. 

Magnetism 99 

Materialism 140 

Mediumship — ■ 

Disorderly 173 

Orderly 174 

Universal 203 

General phases 205 

Children 234 

Truth in failures...235 
Pythian 70 

Methodists 180 

Melancthon, 147 

Saved by spirits 147 

Miracles — 

Faith-principle 271 

Milton — 

Testimony 251 

Moral Responsibil- 
ity 298, 308 

Mozart 170 

Beautiful death 171 

Moses — 

Seeing God 51 

Egyptian medium.. 34 
Persian rites 45 

Montanus 124 

Mouravieff — ■ 

Testimony 142 

Murray, John 184 

Mummies — 

Hebraic heads 45 

Music — 

Philosophy of 64 

Myths — 

Brahminic 27 

Mythic Jesus 80 

Neo-Platonic 129 

Nite, Aaron — 

Greeting to 3 

Nicene Council 353 

Obsessions — ■ 

By curiosity 160 

By influence 301 

By neglect of rea- 
son 122 

Deaf and dumb 302 

Tutelary 126 

General belief in 303-4 
Supposed diseases. .303 

Law of ingress 306 

Cures for 307 

Oracles — 

Tower of Belus 29 

Golden ship 35 

Inarticulate 60 

Delphian, etc 70 



PAGE 

Oracles — 

Christ and Christna 85 

Origin 125 

Orthodoxy 16 

Parkek, Theo. — 

Testimony 221 

Grave of 220 

Paracelsus 156 

Law of healing 156 

Passions ..348 

Pastophora 8 

Palestine — 

Psychological 9 

Jewish character... 9 

Past — 

Religious uses 14 

Representatives 15 

Virtues of 21 

Persecutions — 

Of church.. .142, 144-5 

Of Catholics 149 

Against Tasso 151 

Of inquisition 157 

Of Puritans 165 

Of English 158 

For heresy 159 

Of Methodists 180 

Peter d'Apono 144 

Persia — 

Psychological 

structure 41 

Commerce 41 

Mythology 42 

Pentateuch — 

Brahminical 45 

Pharisees 267 

Philo Jud.eus — 

Cosmogony ...113, 114 

Phcbnecians — 

History of 28 

Commerce 28 

In America 29 

Cosmogony 46 

Pictures — 

Of Grecian saints ..142 

Plato — 

Dialogue 57 

Planchette 208 

Scientific American214 

Pliny — 

Oracular 72 

Plotinus — 

Theology of 131 

Post-Apostolic 121 

Potter, John — 

Building; church. ...185 



INDEX. 



369 



PAGE. 

Porphyry 132 

Learning of 132 

Works burned 132 

Teachings 133 

Poetic Testimony 247 

Soul prophets ......247 

Poets — 

Interpreters of 

gods 57 

Polyoarp 

Vision of. 118 

Moral courage. .....119 

Prayer 341 

Virtue of 342-341 

Healing 342 

Hypocritical 343 

Receptive 134 

Pre-existence — 

Of Jesus. ....... 116, 271 

Of all 125 

Philo Judseus 114 

Prescott, Elder J. S — 
Testimony 183 

Progress — 

Circles .' 191 

Scientific 199 

Relatively finite 258 

Causal 13 

Spiral 25 

Proclus 135 

Divine demon 135 

Prophecy — - 

By fasting 133 

Of inventions 144 

Of discoveries 148 

Laws of 144 

Of schisms 145 

Blazing star 153 

Spirit guided 158 

Of mutations 165 

Of death .....169 

Of Shakers 183 

Queen of France ...170 

Of books 193 

Of Miller 193 

Of A. J. Davis 194 

Of Nineveh 48 

Of "Rappings" ...193 

Psychology — 

Fantastic forms 116 

Sign of cross 140 

Ante-natal 87, 114 

Return of Jesus 108 

By Moses 51 

Pythagoras — 

Incarnation 86 

24 



page. 

Pythagoras — 

Scientific travels... 86 
Identical with Je- 
sus 86 

Characteristics 87 

Angelic child 87 

Mediumship 87 

Gymnosophic 98 

Races — 

Shemite 27 

Rashees 98 

Raphael 159 

Religion — 

Consecutive 105 

Modified 105 

Psychological 106 

Biblically three- 
fold 124 

Reid, Rev. H. A. — 
Testimony 230 

Repentance — 

Law of 289, 290 

In future life 291 

Reformation — 

Spiritual mistake ..146 

Resurrection 330 

Of the body 331 

What to be raised..333 
Body of Roger Will- 
iams 332 

Jesus' body 334 

Of nature 335-6 

Idiots and infants. .337 

Identity 338 

Progressive 339 

Rome — 

Psychological 

structure 68 

Romulus — 

Spiritual address... 71 

Say, Thomas 175 

Sanchoniathan — 

Pupilage..'.'. 28 

Before Moses 46 

Sanscrit — 

On emigration 29 

Key of Buddhism .. 38 

Sardonapolus — 

Faith in the gods .. 48 

Sallust — 

Law of correspon- 
dence 68 

Salvation — 

Inner merit 92 

Universal 292 

Sadducees 267 



PAGE. 

Sanford, Rev. J. P. — 
Testimony 230 

Schiller — 

Inspirational 161 

Scotch — 

Seership 164 

Infants 164 

Animals 164 

Science — 

Occult 34 

Scandinavia — 

Buddhistic descent 29 

Sexual Abuses 349 

Sects — 

Decline of 18 ■ 

Shakers — 

Spirit gifts 183 

Social system 184 

Sherlock, Bishop — 
Gifts of spirit 155 

Simon Magus — 

Teachings 115 

Mediumship 116 

Skinner, R,ev. G. W. — 
Testimony 228 

Smith, Gerritt — 

Testimony 236 

Solar Spectrum — 
Analogous with 

spirit 274 

Of fragrance, 
blood, etc 275 

Soul — 

Distinct from spirit335 

Germinal forces 350 

Of things 125 

Social Science — 

Prospective 352 

Socrates — 

Testimony 58 

Death of 59 

Death by evil spir- 
its , 122 

SOZOMEN 

Church historian... 140 

Spirit — 

Infinite substance.. 20 

In man 20 

Creation developed 21 

Spirits — 

In prison 292, 317 

Classification 301 

Vanishing 334 

Author's band 6 

Egyptian gods 34 

Sustenance of. 108 



370 



INDEX. 



PAGE. 

Spirits — 

Return of ..32, 110,212 
Of Jesus' disciples.. 50 

Host of 51 

Abodes of 61 

Bands of 204 

Spirit of the Age ... 13 

Spirit World — 

Causation 192 

Described 

...319, 175, 176, 178 

Ratios of life 322 

Progressive 324 

Degrees of 319 

Spiritual Body — 

A unit 336 

Sphere of. 336 

Identity 338 

Spiritual Dreams — 

OfCaracalla 72 

Attila's bow 72 

For Sculpture 159 

Spiritual Deliverance 

From drowning 180 

From prison. ..141, 149 

From fire ,..134 

Waldenses 149 

From robbers 154 

Spiritual Forms — 
Opinion of Bever- 

edge 155 

Tully thro' Agrippal49 

Appear as men 46 

Seen by Tasso 151 

Old Testament 52 

Spiritual Force (Mov- 
ing bodies) — 
Removing stones. ..142 

Brahmins in air 30 

Ancient media in 

air 35 

By hair of head.... 48 
SimonMagus in air 116 

Clash of arms 66 

Commotions of 

things 151 

Jamblichus lifted 

up 133 

Guiding a ship 185 

Spiritual dancing. .182 

Spiritual Galleries — 
For paintings... 61 

Spiritual Gifts — 

Transmissible 107 

Post-Apostolic 123 

Christian proof of..l55 



page. 

Spiritual Gifts — 

Decline of 128 

Of 3d century 125 

Of early Christians 127 

Spiritual Healing — 

Healing temples 61 

Restoring life 121 

Vespasian's mira- 
cles 73 

Wesley's laying on 

of hands, 179 

Secret by angels ...155 

By St. Bernard 143 

Direct by angels... 

154, 162 

By Luther 147 

By vision 154 

By sign of cross 120 

By Thomas Say 176 

Egyptian method... 34 
Of the 5th century. 127 

Spiritual Inventions — 
By Roger Bacon 144 

Spiritual Influx — 
Conditions of 175 

Spiritual Leadership — 

Of Joshua 149 

House of worship. .185 
Constantine's cross 140 
Jerome Cardamus..l57 

Spiritual Music — 

By angel choirs 119 

For Mozart.. ..170, 171 
At death of Boeh- 

men 159 

In the sky 225 

Inspirational. ..61, 167 

In rocks 33 

By staves 201 

By bells 63-65 

For Beethoven 171 

Producing trance. ..135 

For Mahomet 65 

Elegant sounds 35 

Spiritual Painting — 
Spirits seen by ar- 
tist 166 

Spiritual Poetry— t 

Inspiring Tasso 150 

Improvised, Schil- 
ler 161 

Modern 247-253 

Spiritual Rappings — 

Sweetness of 198 

March, 1848 201 

In 1849 211 



PAGE. 

Spiritual Rappings — 

Through Bodin 150 

In Wesley family. ..179 
For warning 163 

Spiritual Sects. ..97, 98 

Spiritual Speaking — 

From heaven 119 

ToColumbus 148 

Spirit of Tully...... 149 

By ancient media... 35 

Spiritual Sculpture — 
Impressed by 

dreams 159 

Spiritual Seership — 

By Faith 155 

Of Gregory VII 143 

Of Plotinus 131 

Spiritual Table Tip- 
ping — 
Chinese 37 

Spiritual Visions — 

By Louis XVI 168 

BySylla 72 

By Hermas. 124 

By Ambrose 127 

Mother of Hail 154 

Spiritual Warriors — 
Joan d'Arc.... 158 

Spiritual Writing — 

In 1849 211, 213 

Alphabet 201 

Spirit Pendulum ...201 

Spiritualism — 

Universal 207 

English believers208-9 

Catholic idea 208 

Success of ....210 

In Peru 210 

Permanency 215 

Grandeur of 222 

Aggressive 355 

Future of 356 

Synopsis of 357 

Propagative 358 

Religion of the 

world 359 

Beauties of 360 

Heavenly influence 184 ' 
Perils of its forces. 306 

Virtues of 276 

Effects of infidelity 167 
Of the 5th century. 127 

Spiritualists — 

Charge to 361 

Illustrations....239, 240 
Independent 255 



INDEX. 



371 



PAGE. 

Spheres — 

Electric 204 

Emanation 274 

Of plants, blood etc275 

Stoicism — 

Brotherly 103 

Stowe, H. B. — 

Testimony 223 

Swedenborgians — 
Estimate of Spirit- 
ualists 174 

Sympathy — 

Between the two 

worlds 198 

Harmonial 204 

Musical 64, 163 

Symbols — 

Of Trinity 8 

Of India 8 

Of Egypt 9 

Of Palestine 10 

Taylor, Bayard — 
"Mysterious inci- 
dents" 225 

Tasso — 

Spiritual poems, etcl50 

Temples — 

Of Jove 29 

Of Serapis 32 

Of Memnon 33 

For manifestations. 34 

Tertullian. .123 

On exorcisms 122 

Character of ..123 



page. 
Tennyson — 

Angel guardians. ...251 
Thackeray — 

Testimony 241 

Theurgy — 

Conditions of 134 

Theraputes — 

Of Egypt 99 

Tillotson 155 

Time— 

Spiritual impres- 
sions 20 

Titus — 

Address to soldiers. 51 
Tiberius — 

Warned by spirits.. 71 
Townsend, Rev. Dr... 
C— 

Testimony 236 

Towne, Rev. E. C— 

At Pierpont's fu- 
neral 241 

Tower of Belus — 

For oracles 29 

Transfiguration — 

Of brain organs 348 

Trance — 

Of Methodists 180 

Quaker, Say 176 

Early Christians....l23 

Of boys 126 

" Sacred Sleep ".... 33 
Triangle — 

Horoscopic 9 



PAGE. 

Trinity — 

Hindoo 81 

Trithemius — 

Mental telegraph- 
ing ...150 

Tuttle, Rev. J. H. — 

Testimony 232 

Universalism — 

Crystalizing 186 

Vespasian 72 

Vice — 

Spiritual injury 69 

Vishnu — 

Incarnation 81 

Walton 163 

Waldenses — 

Spirit guided 148 

Wesley, John , 178 

Whittier — 

Testimony 2C2 

Witchcraft — 

Of New England....l65 
Women — 

Spiritual 202 

Worship — 

Heavenly 19 

Angelic liturgy 119 

Yonge — 

On the gods 49 

Zend A vesta — 

Angelic origin 42 

Zoroaster — 

Spiritualistic 42 



Names of the Principal Authors Consulted, 
with a clue to their more prominent works. 



Higgins, Godfrey Anacalypsis. 

Pythagoras, by.... Jamblichus. 

Berime, Jacob Concerning the Soul. 

Jenner, Thomas What the Soul Is 

Baxter, Richard Nature of Spirits. 

Priestly, Joseph...... ....Matter and Spirit. 

Hittell, John S .....Pantheism. 

Fitche, J. H ."...' Phil. Confession. 

Ennemoser, Joseph .........Historic Psychology. 

Glanvill, Joseph .Pre-existence of Souls. 

Parker, Samuel, Bp Platonic Philosophy. 

Reynaud, Jean..... Philosophy of Religion. 

Cardano, Girolamo .....De Im. Animorum 

More, Henry Philosph. Poems 

Lavater, David. Human Mind. 

Hume, David Essays. 

Eckermann, J. C. ...Immortality. 

Strauss, D. F The Future Life. 

Parker, Theodore Sermons, Lectures. 

Bunsen, C. C. J EgyptJJistory of Religion. 

Rawlinson, George Christ, vs. Heathenism. 

Schoolcraft, H. R.. Indian Tribes. 

Mallet, P. H Northern Antiquities. 

Rosellini, J Egyptian Monuments. 

Champollion-Figeac Ancient Egypt. 

Wilkinson, Sir J. G Manners and Customs, Egypt. 

Klenker, J. F Zend-Avesta. 

Pope, J. A Ardai Viraf. 

173 



874 NAMES OF THE PRINCIPAL AUTHORS CONSULTED. 

Wilson's Rig Yeda 

Haughton, Sir. J. G Institutes of Manu. 

Wilkins, Charles Bhagavat Gita. 

Roer, Dr. E Brihad Aranyaka. 

Colebrook, H. T Is. Vara Chrishna. 

Wilson, H. H Vishnu Purana. 

Ward, William Mythology of India. 

Muller, Max Languages. 

GutzlafF, Chas Buddhism in China. 

Guignes, M. de Confucius. 

Collie, David Chinese-Sse-shu. 

Legge, James Chinese Classics 

Jortin, John Dissertations. 

Whewell, DD. Wm Plato. 

Fincke, C. E Olympiodorus. 

Taylor, Thomas Plotinus. 

Bellows, J.N Cicero's Immortality. 

Warburton, William Legation of Moses. 

Tillard, John Beliefs of the Ancients. 

Butler, W. A Lect. on Ancient Philosophy. 

Dennis, J.... Hist, of Theories and Morals. 

Kenrick, J Rom. Sep. Inscriptions. 

Hampden, R. D Fathers of Greek Philosophy. 

Calmet, Augustus Dissertations. 

Priestly, Joseph Knowledge of Ancient Hebrews. 

Wette, W. M. L. de Bib. Doctrines. 

Chubb, Thomas Dis. on Miracles. 

Philo, Juda3us De Infernis. 

Josephus, Flavius Hist, of Jews. 

Taylor, W. C Hist. Mohammedanism. 

Renan, J. Ernest Life of Jesus. 

Tholuck, F. A. G Theos. Per. Pantheism. 

Olshansen, H Ant. of Immortality. 

Friedlieb, Leipz Sibylline Oracles. 

Child, L. Maria Prog. Rel. Ideas. 

Lactantius, by J. B. Le. Brun... ._ Immortality of the Soul. 

Savonarola, Girolamo.... ..Dialogues — Future Life. 

Ambrose, I. U The Last Things. 

Clarke, Samuel Lee. and Discussions. 

Benson, Joseph Scrip. Essay 



NAMES OF THE PRINCIPAL, AUTHORS CONSULTED. 375 

Newton, Thomas Diss. Int. State. 

Dick, Thomas Phil. Future State. 

Taylor, Isaac N. Hist, of Enthusiasm. 

Alger, W. II Hist, of Future Life. 

Stuart, Moses Doub. Sense of Scripture. 

Bush, G-eorge Script. Psychology. 

Ballou, Hosea Atonement. 

Dewey, Orville >. Views of Death. 

Davis, A. J Nature's Divine Revelations. 

Campbell, Archibald Death and Resurrection . 

Robinson, W Invisible World. 

Miles, J. Browning Spirits in Prison. 

Luther, Martin Doc. Sermons. 

Usher, James Abp Prayers for the Dead. 

Cud worth , Ralph Intellectual System. 

Locke, John Immortality of the Soul. 

Mosheim, John L. Von Eccl. History. 

Wigglesworth, Michael ..Des. of Last Judgment. 

Neander, Michael Heaven and Hell. 

Boston, Thomas Fourfold State. 

Swedenborg, Emanuel Heaven and Hell. 

Balfour, Walter Int. State of the Dead. 

Baxter, Richard. Saints Rest. 

Chalmers, Thomas New Heavens and Earth. 

Newton, Andrews Future Life of the Good. 

Channing, W. E The Future Life. 

Home, Robert. ..Sermons. 

Campbell, Geo Dissertations. 

Brownson, 0. A Pun. of Reprobates. 

Tillotson, John Abp Eternity of Hell Torments. 

Whiston, Wm Sermons and Essays. 

Law, William , Address to the Clergy. 

Emmons, Nathanial General Judgment. 

Winchester, Elhanan .Universal Restoration. 

Edwards, Jonathan Theo. Controversy. 

Foster, John ...Letter on Future Punishment. 

Maurice, J. F. D Theo. Essays, 

Crowe, Mrs. C. (Stevens) Night Side of Nature. 

Owen, R. D Footfalls— Bound, of Another World. 

Howitt, William Hist, of the Supernatural. 



376 NAMES OF THE PRINCIPAL AUTHORS CONSULTED. 

Atkinson, J. C Reason and Instinct. 

Zschokke, Joh. D Med. on Death and Eternity. 

Dubois, B Doc. of N. Testament. 

Denon. M Hist. Anct. Religions. 

Maurice, Rev. Mr Ind. Antiquities. 

Jones, Sir Wm Asiat. Researches. 



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Spiritual Invention ; or, Autobiographic Scenes and Sketches. 

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Spiritualism. Vol. 1. By Judge Edmonds and Dr. Dexter. $2,50, postage 
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Seeress of Prevorst. By Justinus Kerner. A book of facts and revela- 
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Six Lectures on Theology and Nature. By Emma Hardinge. Steel 
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Sabbath of Life. By R. D. Addhgton. $1,50, postage 20 cents. 
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Theodore Parker in Spirit-Life : A Narration of Personal Experi- 
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50 copies $8,00 ; 100 copies $15,00. 

The Worker and His Work : A Discourse. By Dr. R. T. Hallock. 15 
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Twelve Messages from the Spirit of John Quiney Adams, 
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The Bible : Is it of Divine Origin, Authority and Influence ? By S. J. 
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The Living Present and Dead Past ; or, God made Manifest 
and Useful in Living Men and Women as he was in Jesus. By 
Henry C. Wright. New and Revised Edition. Cloth 75 cents, postage 8 cents ; 
paper 50 cents, postage 4 cents. 

Tracts on Spiritualism. Lectures delivered by A. J. Davis, at Dod- 
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The Harvester: For Gathering the Ripened Crops on every Homestead, 
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Thomas Paine in Spirit- World. 75 cents, postage 8 cents. 

Underhill on Mesmerism, with Criticisms on its Opposers. By Samuel 
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cents. 

Voices from Spirit-Land. By Nathan Francis White, medium. 75 
cents, postage 16 cents. 

What is Spiritualism ? An Address delivered by Thomas Gales Forster, 
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copy ; 50 copies $8,00 ; 100 copies $15,00. 

Wildfire Club. By Emma Hardinge. $1,25, postage 20 cents. 

Whatever Is, is Right. By A. B. Child, M. D. $1,00, postage 16 cents. 

Whatever Is, is Right Vindicated: Being a Letter to Cynthia Tem- 
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Woman and Her Era. By Mrs. Eliza W. Farnham. Two Volumes, 
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What 's O'Clock ? 25 cents, postage 2 cents. 



ENGLISH WORKS. 

AnimalMagnetism. By Dr. Lee. $3,75, postage 16 cents. 
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" Primeval Man." The Origin, Declension and Restoration of the Race. 
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Spiritualism. By J. H. Powell. $1,00. 



WORKS IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 

Arcana of Nature. Vol. I. By Hudson Tuttle. (Paper. $2,50, postage 
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Magic Staff. By A. J. Davis. With Steel Portrait of Author. $3,50, post- 
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Reformer. By A. J. Davis. Illustrated. $2,75, postage 28 cents. 



SPIRITUAL AND REFORM BOOKS. 7 

MISCELLANEOUS AND REFORM WORKS. 

Age of Reason : Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology. 
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Art of Conversation, with Directions for Self-Education. $1,50, postage 
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American Crisis ; or, The Trial and Triumph of Democracy. 
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Apocryphal New Testament. $1,25, postage 16 cents. 

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Astro-Theological Lectures. By Rev. Robert Taylor. $2,00, postage 
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Art of Amusing : A Collection of Graceful Arts, Merry Games, Odd Tricks, 
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$2,00, postage 20 cents. 

A Trip to the Azores, or Western Islands. By M. Borges D. F. 
Henriques. $1,50. 

Atlantis, and Other Poems. By Amanda T.Jones. $1,25, postage free. 

Adventures of Elder Tubb. 65 cents, postage S cents. 

Biography of Satan; or, A Historical Exposition of the Devil 
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Book of Religions : Comprising the Views, Creeds, Sentiments or Opin- 
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Book of Notions. By John Hayward. 75 cents, postage 12 cents. 

Companion Poets for the People. Illustrated. Vol. 1 — Household 
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Complete Works of Thomas Paine, Secretary to the Committee of 
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Combe's Constitution of Man. Twenty-Eighth American Edition. 
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Dissertations and Discussions. By John Stuart Mill. Three Volumes, 
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Diegesis : Being a Discovery of the Origin, Evidences and Early History 
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Dawn. A New Work of Exciting Interest. $2,00, postage 24 cents. 

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Empire of the Mother over the Character and Destiny of the 
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Errors of the Bible, Demonstrated by the Truths of Nature; or, Man's 
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Examination of the Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton. By 
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First Years in Europe. By G. H. Calvert, author of "Scenes and 
Thoughts in Europe," "The Gentleman," &c. $1,75, postage 20 cents. 

Gazelle. A Tale of the Great Rebellion. The Great Lyrical Epic of the War. 
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Habits of Good Society. A Hand-Book of Etiquette for Ladies and 
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Is it I ? A Book for Every Man. A companion to " Why Not ?" By Prof. 
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Is there a Devil ? An Argument pro and con., with an Inquiry into the 
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Infidel's Text-Book : Being the substance of Thirteen Lectures on the 
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Life of Jesus. By Ernest Renan. Translated from the original French, by 
Charles Edwin Wilbour. $1,75, postage free. 

Life of Thomas Paine, author of "Common Sense," "Rights of Man," 
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Little Brother, and Other Stories. By Fitz Hugh Ludlow. $1,50, 
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Marriage and Parentage ; or, The Reproductive Element in 
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" Ministry of Angels " Realized. A Letter to the Edwards Congre- 
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Mistake of Christendom ; or, Jesus and his Gospel, before 
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Martyria ; or, Andersonville Prison. By Lieut.-Col. A. C. Hamlin, 
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Natty, a Spirit ; His Portrait and Life. By Allen Putnam. Cloth 
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New Republic. By L. U. Reavis. 50 cents, postage 4 cents. 

Optimism, the Lesson of Ages. By Benjamin Blood. 75 cents, post- 
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On the Border. By Edmund Kirk. $1,75, postage 20 cents. 

Poems of David Gray, with Memoirs of his Life. Elegant cloth binding, 
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Poems and Ballads. By A. P. McCoombs. Cloth bound. $1,00, postage 
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Peterson's New Cook Book : Containing Eight Hundred and Fifty- 
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Political Works of Thomas Paine, to which is prefixed a brief sketch 
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Philosophical Dictionary of Voltaire. Fifth American Edition. Two 
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Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte. By John Stuart Mill. 
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Queen Mab, with Notes. By Percy B. Shelley. 75 cents, postage 13 
cents. 



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